A Wreath of Laurel
by Firemare
Summary: L/OC, with a little Nightcrawler and Beast action! (um.. not together..) My first X-Man fic! I've had it in my mind for some time....R/R for happy times! Update: the last of the flashback scenes! I know, I know. From now on we move in real time!
1. Hit the Road, Jack

Disclaimer: Give me a chance, this is the first time I've done X-Men. But I've had this floating about in my mind for a little while. I've read some of the books, but this is mostly based after the movies, about a year or two post X2. "Hit the Road, Jack" done by Ray Charles.  
  
"Hit the road, Jack,  
  
And don't you come back   
  
No more, no more, no more, no more;  
  
Hit the road, Jack,  
  
And don't you come back no more."  
  
Kurt Wagner--otherwise known as The Amazing Nightcrawler--sang happily but quietly along with the radio in the empty kitchen of the Xavier mansion. The students were in bed, as were most of the teachers, but he was inexplicably hungry, so he had prowled down to the kitchen for a midnight snack. With a sandwich in one hand, he took a coke from the fridge, twisting the top off with his tail. He straightened up and turned around, closing the fridge with a bump of his hip. "Oh voman, oh voman---"  
  
He stopped completely. Standing there in front of him was the mutant Wolverine, an eyebrow raised. Kurt flushed, trying to remember the man's real name. What was it? He hated to call him Wolverine; the "w"s in his English still gave him trouble, even after all these years. "I like zhe American oldies," he said with a shrug indicating the radio. When Wolverine's eyes went to the coke in his hand, he asked, "Vould you like one?"  
  
"No beer?" The man's voice was low, rough and edged with cynicism.   
  
Kurt shook his head. "I do not drink. But zhere is none anyway. Ve are in a school."   
  
"So Chuck keeps on reminding me." Wolverine watched in interest as Kurt's tail opened the fridge and tossed him a coke. "A useful appendage," he said, nodding at the tail.  
  
Smiling, Kurt took up a crouching position in a chair opposite Wolverine at the table. Did the man ever speak in full sentences? "Yes, I have become very used to it. I don't know how some people can not have zhem."  
  
A slight smile was the other man's response. "We manage." He opened his coke and took a drink as Kurt bit into his sandwich. After a pause, Wolverine opened his mouth, and then shut it again. Finally, he asked, "Have you always looked like that?" At Kurt's nod, his eyes darkened with some unrecognizable emotion. "Was it hard?"  
  
Kurt chewed as he thought this over. Wolverine's question held a lot of different levels. This man was as complex as the others had mentioned. Finally he put the sandwich down on the plate in front of him and looked Wolverine in the eyes. "Ja. It vas hard at times," he said slowly. "Zhe normals, zhe not-mutants, zhey do not understand vhat it is like to be me. Nor do most of zhe mutants I meet. Zhat is zhe big problem: not understanding. I pray for zhem to understand me someday. I hope it vill come. But I have also known many who do not care about my mutation. It gives me hope for zhe others. And zhe mutants zhat do not care are not as many, but still friendly. I pray zhat God vill open zhe others' hearts someday."  
  
A flash of cynicism crossed Wolverine's face, but he nodded and said nothing. There was a lengthy pause between them, as Kurt picked up his sandwich and began eating again. He watched as Wolverine shifted, and looked out the window.   
  
"Nice weather," Wolverine said shortly after a while. "Chuck said that the weather patterns have become sensitive to Storm's moods after her living here so long. She must be feeling real nice tonight."  
  
To his embarrassment, Kurt had just taken a big gulp of coke, and he choked and sputtered. Wolverine turned around sharply. "Are you alright?" Then his eyes narrowed. "Is that a blush?"  
  
Kurt tried to cover up his reaction with coughing, but apparently Wolverine would not be put off. He glanced outside at the soft rain, and then again back at Kurt, whose face become even hotter. "Did you.... Are you..."  
  
He felt his face stretch slightly in a small grin. Licking his lips nervously, he nodded. What would this man think, he thought to himself. He's very protective. Would he---  
  
To his relief Wolverine chuckled quietly and wagged a finger at him. "It's about time," he said laughing. "It's almost been a year. We were wondering when you two would finally get it figured out. But you'd better be careful: you've both got students now. Don't go creeping into each other's rooms when the kids can hear you."  
  
"Ve're, ah, working on it," Kurt managed as a wave of relief washed over him. Thank God. This man was one of Ororo's friends; his acceptance and the implied acceptance of the others was one of the things that he had worried about. Some concern that had been removed from his back right now: not only did her friends approve, but she was pleased herself. It was nice to have a lover (he almost blushed again at the thought) who was easy to "read". Now he only had one question to ask her...  
  
"To working on it," Wolverine said, clinking bottles with him. "It's a good thing, too. Some of the students were beginning to think they should take steps. Who'd have thought you would have been such a ladies' man? Have you always had this many, uh, admirers?"  
  
"Admirers?" he repeated, feeling amused now that the tension was over. "Nein. I have had one other, ah, girlfriend, I zhink you say. She vould be happy vith me right now: she knew zhe professor, and even suggested zhat I visit here if I vas ever in the United States."  
  
"Figures. Chuck knows everyone on the planet," Wolverine joked. He took another drink gave him a curious look. "But your ex girlfriend wouldn't mind you with another woman?"  
  
Kurt shook his head. "Ve vere never really in love vith each other. She vas more like a really close friend. Besides, she vas in love vith someone else. But she taught me English, just in case I should ever come to zhe US."  
  
"She was English?" the other man asked, leaning forward.  
  
He nodded. Kurt actually found himself enjoying Wolverine's company. It was a kind of camaraderie between guys that he had never experienced before. Living with the X-Men, he thought to himself with a small smile, was a learning experience altogether. "She vas American. I met her in Germany, quite a few years ago. The circus was in town..."  
  
"Presenting... the Amazing Nightcrawler!"  
  
The small group watched the young acrobat swing from the top of the small, cheap circus tent. His long blue tail grasped the trapeze like the appendage was another one of his strangely-shaped clawed hands. One of the teenagers glanced at another. The girl nodded back, sliding her eyes down to her hands. The others caught it and for a moment, all three were focused on her right hand. She held it away from her body, but turned it over and over. The other hand clenched a stone strung on a string around her neck. Instead of the human hand that had been there before, the fingers had formed into two fat ones, with claws on the end. The thumb likewise had a claw on it. The entire hand was covered in a soft blue skin that suddenly stopped at the wrist, as if it had been cut off. The skin was normal from that point on. The younger boy looked up at the girl, and she nodded. "It's not a costume. He's really a mutant."  
  
The girl to her right suddenly gasped, and bit her lip, eyes tightly closed. "What is it, Sybil?" asked the first girl. "What do you see?"  
  
The girl's eyes popped open, her emerald-green eyes (from corner to corner) looking startlingly bright in her chocolate colored skin. "Him." Her eyes fixed on the mutant on the trapeze. "We have to keep an eye on him. Something bad's going to happen. Tonight." The boy placed a hand on her shoulder, trying to calm her down. The elder girl scanned the crowd.   
  
"Can you get a closer reading than that?" she asked, in a hushed voice. Her left hand relaxed on the stone around her neck, and her right suddenly became a pink-skinned hand again.  
  
The Sybil shot her an annoyed glance. It was disconcerting, especially when her eyeballs themselves were indistinguishable from the 'whites' of her eyes. "Not without touching him. Do you want to explain why I should be up there on the trapeze? It's just that... if we don't do something, by nine tonight he'll be dead."  
  
"I think that's close enough," said the boy, settling his arm on the Sybil's shoulder. He shot a glance at the older girl.  
  
"It still doesn't tell us how, Distort," the redhead said, her eyes slightly narrowed as she kept scanning the crowd. "And that's-that's... wait. Hold on." She focused on a small knot of people on the other side of the tent, which were not paying attention to the young man up in the sky. "Can you get us a closer look at them?" she asked, nodding at the group.  
  
"Sure," the boy known as Distort shrugged. "Of course." He moved his hands slightly, and a smaller version of the group formed in the cup of his hands. There was one man who appeared to be with the circus gypsies, and four more that looked like they were from the small, rural town.   
  
"Can you read their lips?" the girl asked.  
  
"Me?" Distort looked up at her. "Why can't you read their minds, Laurel?"  
  
"They're across a crowded tent. I don't know what you're thinking: my telepathy isn't that strong. Or that focused. What are they saying?"  
  
"I can't get it all. I don't speak German that well, remember? It's... that looks like 'devil', and that's 'tonight', there's 'outside' and 'mutant'." They all knew the translations of mutant in other languages.   
  
"That's 'fake' or 'trick'," Sybil put in.   
  
Laurel DuCrais---otherwise known as Xerox, Mimic, and Magpie---pursed her lips as she looked at the single member of the circus group. He had a ratty, shifty little gaze on him she didn't trust, and he glared up at the man at the top every so often as if he had a personal grudge. He probably did. "I think we should follow him," she said slowly. "Something tells me that the blue guy's going to be rather hard to follow, but this one'll take us right to him."  
  
Distort sighed. "By 'we' you mean 'me', don't you?" he said. As the two girls grinned at him, he sighed again and stood up. He turned a little, and there was a sudden circular motion of the air around him, like a small localized tornado. Then he disappeared 


	2. Bamf!

AN: If you'd like to take on the Sybil or Distort for character development, let me know. I just needed some other people to fill in around the story. I've got a little backstory on them, but if they spark your fancy, contact me.  
  
Laurel could sense him watching the rat-faced man while she and Sybil kept an eye on the townies. This mostly involved sneaking behind them as they went into bars and talked with liquored up drunks. Every once in a while she would touch his mind gently to check in, but she trusted Distort's abilities enough not to be in constant contact with him. It was after the later performance that she felt him trying to find her. Sure enough, the townies that they were following glanced at their watches (she caught the Sybil's thought: normals were so predictable) and started their plan. The townies had been talking about the mutant politics that were starting in America, and eventually turning the conversation around to mutants in Germany. One of the townies stood up (a huge, burly man with an enlarged nose) and said, "The mutant circus gets out right now. We should find some and make them tell us what they are planning."  
  
She and Sybil followed the townies with amazement: there was no way they should have been able to rile up a mob that fast. They weren't mutants themselves; Laurel would know if they were. She tried to glance into one of the townie's minds, but it was hard to focus in such a large group with so many incensed emotions running around. All what she got was a feeling of satisfaction, and a sensation that someone had paid them to do this. But not the gypsy, for some reason. She looked into the leader's mind and found, while everyone else was thinking a million things at once, he was rehearsing something. A list of questions he would force the mutant to "confess" to. There was a plot going on here. Then she felt Distort frantically searching for her.  
  
"?" she sent, trying hard to reach him.  
  
"!" was what she got back, but she caught an image of another group of townies, another mob, coming the opposite direction. And the rat-faced man was leading the circus performer, dressed in an oversized trench coat and large hat, right up the middle. Laurel grabbed the Sybil's hand and pushed her way closer to the front of the group. They arrived just as the circus performer found himself in the middle of a street between two rather large and fairly upset mobs.   
  
He threw a glance apprehensively at his "friend", who knocked the hat off his head to gasps of the crowd. His inky blue face turned nearly gray as one of the townies grabbed his hands and yanked them behind his back and the rat-faced man pulled out a blindfold and slipped it over the mutant's eyes. His hands were bound and he was spun around in a circle like some oversized child playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey, while the townies laughed. But they soon tired of that, and from what Laurel could scrape off the general mind frame, this was going to get ugly very soon. She shot a glance over at Sybil.  
  
"Meet me at the bikes," was all she said, but the Sybil's eyes widened, and nodded. She sent the same sentence to Distort, and felt his assent as he retreated. "Here," Laurel added, as the younger girl backed away. She tossed her the stone necklace, using her slight telekinesis abilities to float it safely to the girl's hands. She would hate to lose another stone.   
  
Her hands clenched as she tried to control her mutation without the help of her failsafe, and managed right up to the point when she teleported right next to the circus performer. As soon as she appeared next to him, the townies' eyes widened as not one, but two blue demons faced them. She wrapped her arms around the bound mutant, and concentrated on the site where their bikes were. Bamf!  
  
The space in the middle of the mob was empty. 


	3. Hitting the Road

An: Tee-hee! I used "bamf!" in the last chapter.  
  
Kurt felt arms circle him, partially dislodging the blindfold. There was a familiar sound, and then feeling, and when the background noises changed, he could only face one thing: there was another like him. The blindfold slipped down around his neck as he stared at the young blue-skinned woman who coughed, waving at the smoke that surrounded them. "Distort--" she coughed for some reason, and a wind of fresh air blew the sulfurous smoke away. Settling her lungs, she smiled at Kurt, a smile that was merely an upward quirk of one corner of her mouth, but nonetheless reached her eyes. "Does that happen every time?" she asked.   
  
He felt his mouth drop open. She was exactly like him, right down to the pointed teeth. She glanced down at herself, as if examining her body for the first time. She flicked the blue, pointed tail with satisfaction, and then sent it down one pocket of her jeans. It came back up with a knife, which was sent slicing through the bonds on his hands in seconds. He rubbed his wrists as the knife was tossed to her hand and put away in the hidden leg sheath. "Shall I take that as a yes?" she joked.  
  
"Who are you?" It was the only thing he could think of. How had he not known that there was another?  
  
Her eyes---yellow! Like his!---filled with consternation. "My name is Laurel DuCrais. Also known as Xerox." She turned slightly to one of the two people behind her, and held out a hand. The other young woman started to walk forward, until the one who had just introduced herself as Laurel put a hand to her head. "Sybil," she said in a voice that was half warning, and half pleading, as Kurt stared with fascination at her eyes. They had gone from yellow, like his, to pure green, flickering back and forth undecidedly and erratically.   
  
"Sorry," replied the young black woman. She tossed whatever was in her hand to Laurel, who caught it without even looking. This was because she had her eyes fixed with Kurt's the entire time. A sort of wash and shiver went over her body, and the hand that grasped the stone split into five normal fingers again, and turned a normal tan skin tone. The change went up her body, shifting blue skin to pink and Kurt watched as the tail was practically sucked back into her body as her ears shrunk and teeth shortened. Then, suddenly, all at once, there was a different person sitting there. A young woman probably only about nineteen or twenty, with shoulder-length auburn hair and clear ice-blue eyes stood in front of him. She was rather short, a little over five foot, he guessed, and was looking at him with solemn eyes.   
  
"I'm not really blue," she said quietly as he tried to fathom what was going on. "They call me Xerox because I copy other people's mutations. I really can't help it." Her eyes pleaded for his understanding.  
  
"Kurt Wagner," he said, drooping a little. If she wasn't really like him, then she wouldn't really have a way of making him look like everyone else. That's what he thought she was doing when the skin changed color. He glanced at the other two behind her. A young African woman, who looked younger than Laurel in front of him, almost a teenager, and a slim Asian man about the same age both looked back calmly. They were not without strange points themselves: the black woman had the green eyes he noticed, and the other young man had two long streaks of blue in his black hair that moved constantly in the wind. Except there was no wind right now. "They also call me Nightcrawler."  
  
"This is the Sybil, also known as Janelle Mestiph, and Distort, also known as Morshiko Kansi." Laurel indicated the two behind her.  
  
Kurt ducked his head in greeting. "Ah, thank you," he said, sending a wary look at the two. "I don't know what would have happened if-"  
  
"We know," said the one called Distort in heavily accented German. "You die."  
  
Laurel shot him an unreadable glance. "Both of them are in the midst of learning German," she said to Kurt, which was not an explanation and was not offered as one. "Do you speak English?"  
  
He shook his head. "I know French and Swedish, and a bit of Latin. But only those."  
  
She grimaced. "I hope you won't object to learning English. It's just about the only language we have in common right now. Sybil knows Swahili and Distort speaks Japanese."  
  
"I don't---" but he was cut off as a commotion was heard behind them. They spun around just in time to face some members of the mob, who had gone in search of their prey.   
  
Laurel cursed. She glanced at Distort and said something in English. The other man nodded, and made a motion with his hands. Then the Sybil hopped on the motorcycle and he climbed up behind her. Laurel straddled the one closest to her and held out a hand to Kurt. "It's time to leave town," she said. "Get on."  
  
He glanced back at the approaching mob and thought of his "family". "The circus---"  
  
The Sybil shouted something at Laurel. She nodded, and looked back at him. "They'll leave tomorrow and you can catch up with them in the next town on your tour," she said. Then she thrust out her hand again, impatiently. Hesitantly he took it, and the bike roared to life. They sped out of the courtyard and down the highway, leaving the mob far behind.   
  
Laurel felt Kurt clinging to her back, his odd-fingered hands wrapped around her waist. She glanced down and saw his tail tightly wound around his leg. They hadn't gotten very far when a gust of wind blew up next to them. Feeling Distort use his talent, she threw a quick look to her left and grinned at the bag and helmets flying next to her. Up ahead Distort and Sybil had their luggage flying next to them, too. He released one hand from around the Sybil's tight waist and snagged the flying bags. Slinging one on his back and shoving the other one behind him on the seat, he took the single helmet and passed the other one to the girl in front of him, taking the handlebars as she put it on.  
  
Laurel extended past her failsafe and felt a tail slowly grow from her tailbone. It also reached out and grabbed the backpack and a helmet. It handed the backpack to Kurt behind her, and she could sense the man's surprise. But he was game, and he put it on his own back. She then handed the helmet to him, and reached for the other one to put it on. The tail certainly was handy. Relaxing, she let the guarding stone protect her from the other mutations again. She looked up ahead. Distort's hair had stopped moving, which meant he had made himself a helmet out of the air around him. She had complete faith that he had enough control over his mutation not to get hurt if the bike wrecked. Sybil would probably warn him anyway, she thought with amusement.  
  
She just let the air whip past her for awhile, clearing her mind as she relaxed. Surprisingly she found herself "eavesdropping" on the man behind her, as his thoughts intruded in her own. So she carefully reached out and tapped lightly in his mind.  
  
His thoughts were whirling with confusion and pain. Foremost was his pain at the betrayal of his circus compatriot. Laurel felt him trying to forgive and understand, and sent her a shock. This man had just tried to kill him, and Kurt was going to forgive? She looked a bit deeper. There it was: Kurt was deeply religious. She admired that. He started to pray silently. She caught some of it: "Lord, help me to find forgiveness in my soul for the ones who do not understand… and help me understand those that have come to my rescue..." She glanced at his thoughts about them. His dismay at the fact that she really wasn't like him, his curiosity at the others, a secret fear that they would harm him as well. It was the last that made her speak.  
  
"We're not going to hurt you. We're all mutants, you know," she said, sending her voice right into his mind. She felt him flinch in surprise. "This is part of my mutation," she added. "I'm slightly telepathic. I'm not strong enough to do anything over great distances, but I can speak like this when we're riding." She sent amusement. "It's easier than talking through these helmets."  
  
"What is your mutation?" he asked. His words were slightly unclear, like he was talking through water.   
  
"Focus your thoughts," she said. "Aim them like a stream of air to me."  
  
"Like this?" he said, a little loudly.   
  
"Quieter," she replied, wincing. "I'm actually a second-generation mutant," she went on. "So I've got both my parents' mutations in a slight degree. My mother was telepathic and had a little telekenisis. It actually runs in the family---I've got a younger cousin who's got them in much more strength than I do. My father had some control over liquid things. My main mutation is that I copy the ones of those around me. I can only control about one at a time, and more than that, especially if they have conflicting points, like your and Sibyl's eyes, gives me a hard time."  
  
"A hard time?" he questioned.  
  
"At one point I was exposed to about ten mutants at a time," she said. "I nearly went crazy." She had to keep herself from remembering this, but even so she knew he got a mental glimpse of what it was like. "I have this guarding stone to help me form a barrier between the other mutants and myself. When I'm wearing it it's like a few layers of thin steel between me and the world. As yet I can only be around a limited number of mutants at a time. Otherwise my failsafe is destroyed." She thought of one time where the stone had collapsed into powder around her neck. "There's another side to my mutation, too. A darker side. When a mutant dies around me, I absorb their mutations, and I can't get rid of them. It becomes another part of me."  
  
"Oh," he said. "Is that part of the reason you saved me?" he asked after a while. "If the mob had killed me, you would have absorbed my mutation forever?"  
  
"Of course not," she said sharply. "Should that be the only reason we saved you? We did it because you certainly didn't deserve it, you were being led into a trap by bigots, and we could do something about it."  
  
Kurt fell silent, and she could feel him thinking about it. "Thank you," he finally said quietly.   
  
"You're welcome."  
  
They traveled in silence down the highway. Eventually as the sky grew darker they passed a small town, and Distort sent Laurel a message that they were ready to stop for the night. They ended up in a hostel for the night. Laurel nodded at the caretaker when they entered. She knew this place. 


	4. What?

AN: So this one and the next one are a bit short. Hey, is Laurel considered a Mary-Sue? I haven't done much of this. What exactly is a Mary-Sue?  
  
Kurt was feeling more than a little apprehensive as they stopped. He had never traveled far from the circus itself, and even in the midst of these strange other mutants, he worried about what other people would say. To his surprise, the other people inside only gave him a few odd looks, and went back to what they were doing. He tapped Laurel on the shoulder as she took the room keys. "What is this place?"  
  
"It's a mutant hostel," she said, nodding at someone who passed them in the hallways. "Most everyone here is a mutant, either from around the general area, or traveling on vacation. There are quite a few places like this if you know where to look."  
  
"And Laurel always know where to look," interjected Sybil. Her grasp of German was just as shaky as Distort's, but she had a little better control of her accent. Laurel stuck out her tongue at the other girl, and handed Kurt a key. "You guys' room is right next to ours. Tomorrow we should go shopping-you're going to need some things if we're to move on."  
  
The next morning he heard a knock at the door. Rolling out of bed, he glanced over to Distort. Even inside, the younger man's locks of blue moved gently as in a wind. He opened the door a crack. Laurel stood outside, munching on a bagel. "Come on," she said. "Let's go." He slid on the trench coat from yesterday over his normal clothes: a long-sleeved shirt and pair of jeans. Turning the lapels up, he wished that he had his hat. Laurel handed him a bagel and hooked her arm in his. As they left, the Sybil slid by them and into the room. Kurt glanced at her as the door shut. "Are they…?"  
  
"Dating? Yup," Laurel said cheerfully. "I admit, I'm a hopeless matchmaker. I like to see everyone with an ideal mate."  
  
"Is there one for everyone?" he asked, thinking there could be no one for him. He never even had someone return his attentions.  
  
"Uh-huh." She smiled at a man walking by them with skin more gray than brown.   
  
"For you?" he pressed. Her unwavering demeanor flickered a bit as her lips tightened.   
  
"Yes," she said shortly. They entered the common room again and her face perked up. "Come on," she said, suddenly cheerful again as she pulled him closer to the desk. "Hey Max," she called to the deskman. "Can we check out the Lost and Found?"  
  
"Sure, Mimic," the clerk said, giving her a friendly smile. "Who's your friend?"  
  
"This is Kurt," she said, pawing through the large box that was set on the counter. "We're traveling together for a bit. Kurt, this is Max. He runs the joint."  
  
Kurt offered one of his three-digited hands rather shyly. Max grinned at him and shook it heartily. Kurt suddenly felt himself grow lighter. He glanced down at his toes. He was floating nearly an inch off the ground!  
  
"Cool it, Max," Laurel said, coming up with a broad-rimmed hat in her hands. Max, completely unabashed, released Kurt's hand and he felt himself land rather heavily on the floor. She handed the hat to Kurt and frowned at the owner. "Don't mind him. That's his mutation: he can make things less dense. He loves to show off."  
  
"There's nothing wrong with a good sense of the theatrical," Kurt replied, suddenly heartened. Max's grin grew even wider, and he winked at the younger man.  
  
"Men," was all Laurel said, but she smiled too as Kurt flipped his hat on his head and they headed out the door.   
  
"So what can Distort and the Sybil do?" Kurt asked as they wandered through the large shopping center. Laurel had a cart with a toothbrush and comb in it so far. She browsed the various kinds of soap.  
  
"Hmm? Oh. Well, Distort's from Japan. His Japanese code-name was something like Wind Bender, or something. Not everything translates. So as opposed to just Bender, he keeps on Distort. He's got a strange way with the air currents around him…he can shape them to do certain things. He can wrap himself in air to protect him-that's why he really doesn't need a helmet when riding the bike-and if he concentrates he can sort of cloak himself to appear invisible. He's got some pretty high-tech training-there were some martial arts masters that were able to help him over in Japan."  
  
"Why is he here?"   
  
"Well, I met up with him in Egypt. He had just finished a sojourn across the winds of the Sahara. He really liked it. Shortly after that we picked up the Sybil."  
  
"What can she do?"  
  
"Her mutation is much less, ah, definite than most of the ones I've come across. While most people have what they refer to as 'intuition' or a 'sixth sense', she's really got one. It comes on her in flashes; if she sees something that is important, she'll have a kind of mental vision of the future. If she really concentrates, she can get it more focused, like on a specific thing or person, or sometimes even the past. But it's rather random. So while we were discussing prophets and oracles, she picked up the name Sybil, which were people who prophesized for the Greeks."  
  
"Like Apollo's Oracle at Delphi," Kurt mused. Laurel looked at him bemusedly. He caught her look and smiled. "I have had much education," he said, but somehow she got the feeling that there was a lot to this elf-man that she didn't know. "Max called you by another name," he said. "I thought your nickname was Xerox."  
  
"I've got a few," she replied. "I've been around a bit, and sometimes it's useful to have a few names."  
  
"Have you traveled much, then?" he asked. "You know many people, it seems."  
  
Laurel worried her lower lip a little. "Yes, I have traveled much."  
  
Kurt glanced at her, and she looked away, trying to focus on the shopping. "What are you looking for?" he asked quietly.   
  
"Shampoo," she said lightly, but he would not be dissuaded. Finally she sighed and paused, leaning against a shelf. "I'm looking for a friend," she said. "It's been nearly fourteen years since I've seen him. I searched all over the states for him, and couldn't find him. He's good with blending in, but not that good, I thought. So I've been widening my contacts in other countries."  
  
"Fourteen years?" Kurt stuttered. "You started looking when you were six or seven?"  
  
At this she smiled again. "I'm quite a bit older than people give me credit for," she said humorously. "I'm nearly forty. I was twenty-three when we were separated. It's-it's another mutation that I've absorbed. I don't age."  
  
"Uh." She could see him trying to cope with the boulder she dropped.  
  
"Kurt, just think of me as a rather mature twenty-three-year old. It's not how old you are, it's how old you feel, right?"  
  
He gulped, and nodded. "Ja. What about your friend? How do you know what he looks like after all these years?"  
  
"He doesn't change very much, either," she said. "Have you seen anyone in your travels? He speaks English, Spanish, and Chinese; at least he did last time I knew him. He'll have rather wild dark hair, fairly short: only a little taller than I am, and built on the stocky side. He's gruff and rather prickly, but he's a good man all the same."  
  
Kurt thought hard for a second, then shook his head. "Nein. Sorry. What is his name?"  
  
"Logan. Logan Contreras."  
  
"What???"   
  
eeep! don't hate me! I made up Logan's last name all by myself. 


	5. Enter The Beast

AN: This one's really short. Sorry. But enter a familiar character.... Yay! Go me.  
  
"What???"   
  
Wolverine interrupted Kurt's story, staring at the blue man with widened eyes.   
  
"What did you say?"  
  
"Her friend's name vas Logan Contreras," Kurt said, a little shocked. "Vhy?"  
  
"Are you fooling with me?" the other man growled, in a low voice.  
  
Kurt shook his head. "Nein. He vas her friend from childhood. Even vhen ve dated for a little vhile she vas still in love vith him. Vhy does zhis matter?"  
  
"When did you talk with her?" Wolverine pressed.  
  
"A few months before I came to the United States," Kurt said amazedly. He had never seen the man so riled up: the tension was tightly wound in him, contained like a compressed spring. "Zhat was about zhree, maybe four years ago."  
  
"Volverine-" Kurt started.  
  
"My name is Logan," he bit off. Kurt's mouth dropped open. He took in Logan's appearance like it was the first time. Wild hair: check. Short, stocky body: check. Gruff and prickly exterior: check. Good man all the same: check.  
  
"Ve have to talk to zhe professor," Kurt said. "He might know her; she suggested zhis place to me."  
  
Amazingly, Logan restrained himself. "Well… Chuck's asleep right now. It's probably one of the few times he has slept through the night. Besides, no one's awake right now." The doorbell rang, and there was a sudden heavy knock on the door. "Except for the dumbass that's outside," Logan muttered, rising.  
  
"You should probably get it," Kurt said. "Zhey're still a little surprised when I open zhe door."  
  
"Right." As he padded down the hallway, the doorbell rang again. Logan sped up. "All right, all right," he said. "Don't wake up the entire house, moron." He saw Kurt appear behind the door, out of sight.   
  
"Yeah?" he growled, yanking open the door.   
  
The porch light shone down on a large, heavy figure, in a huge dark trench coat and shading hat. It looked like it was soaked through with the rain that had been coming down for the past few hours.   
  
"I beg your pardon for the hour," said a deep, cultured voice. "May I come in?   
  
The sharp coppery tang of blood entered Logan's nostrils just as the figure took a shaky step closer to the house and collapsed just inside the doorframe. It hit the ground heavily, completely unconscious. He caught sight of dark fur, and clawed hands as it fell, and when it hit the ground the hat flew off to show a large, ape-like face covered in dark blue-black fur. A small pool of blood began to form under one shoulder. Logan glanced at Kurt, who was staring at the figure in as much surprise as he was.   
  
"Now we should wake the professor," Logan said. 


	6. April 17th

AN: Thanks everyone who reviewed! Screamin-psiren and Starfish, and Helena and ZOTRM.... good job. You get a cookie. Or a zombie.   
  
I'm putting up two chapters right now because I got so many responses to my Mary Sue question and the last one was just so dang short. I'm always reading the reviews (I can't get enough good press! *wynk wynk*) so keep me updated on what you think and if you see any typos. BTW, the next one is going to be longer.  
  
As Kurt teleported to Ororo's and then the Professor's door, Logan surveyed the mutant lying on the floor. For a second he had thought it was Sabertooth, but when the hat came off, he knew it wasn't. In the split-second between the fall and the landing he had nearly pulled out the claws, but something had stopped him. Had he released his claws, it probably would have killed the mutant.   
  
He partially lifted the prone mutant. It was male, as far as he could see. A pair of large slacks was the only clothes he was wearing under the trench coat. A bandage was wrapped around his back and shoulder, but it had slipped somehow and now blood was running down his side. Logan gave a heave, and got the mutant in an upright position, leaning against him. He panted; he would probably have to carry this one all the way down to the medical room. A flash of pain went through him: they could have really used Jean for something like this.   
  
There was a noise in front of him. The professor pushed his chair down the hallway, as Ororo and Scott trotted behind. He frowned at the mutant in Logan's arms as Scott came to help him. Ever since Jean's death Scott had become a little quieter, a little more helpful. Ororo helped them wrestle the mutant out of the trench coat, and then examined the wound with patient nurse's fingers.   
  
"Professor?" she said, casting a glance back at him.   
  
"I think I know who he is," Charles Xavier said cautiously. "But I wasn't aware that he looked quite like this."  
  
Storm's finger lit upon a familiar circular shaped scar on the back of the mutant's neck. She peered closer. "He's got the scar from Striker's mind control fluid," she said.  
  
Just then Kurt showed up, with a sleepy-eyed Bobby. "Vhat?"   
  
"It's older than yours, Kurt," she went on. "I'd say at least a few months."  
  
"Zhen he is no longer under its control," Kurt said. "I… it vas only used on me a few times." There was a pause, because he didn't talk about the Striker experience very often. Kurt himself broke the silence, gesturing to Bobby. "I zhought zhat ve might need a little more help carrying him," he explained. The kid's eyes widened at the burly furred mutant, but he moved over to help. He had become more mature since Pyro left, almost a full-time member of the X-Men.   
  
"Why can't you just jump him down, 'Crawler?" asked Logan in a strained voice. "He's getting kinda heavy."  
  
"It's not a good idea to move those that are unconscious," Professor Xavier said. "Kurt and I have discussed this."  
  
"Right," grimaced Logan. Kurt and Bobby took up some more of the mutant's weight, but he was still a heavily muscled man, accent on heavy.   
  
They got him down to the medical room, grunting and sweating, and manhandled him up on the table. The cool metal made the mutant shift and groan slightly. Storm looked at the Professor. "He's waking up."  
  
Sure enough, the large eyes blinked open, revealing dark brown slightly animalistic orbs. They landed on Storm first, then glanced at the others. At the sight of Kurt they widened, but at Logan they narrowed, as if the mutant was trying to remember something. Finally he looked at Professor Xavier.   
  
"I knew it wasn't a good idea to come," he said quietly, the deep cultured voice rolling out of his mouth. "She knew that, too. But here we are anyway."  
  
"Doctor McCoy," started Xavier, but the mutant shook his head.  
  
"Call me Hank, or Beast," he said, a pain-tightened smile crossing his face. He shifted and winced at the movement. "Don't you have a resident doctor here?" he asked, glancing around again.  
  
The others exchanged glances. "Jean Gray is no longer with us," Xavier said finally.   
  
Hank McCoy's eyes flickered from Ororo's moist eyes to Scott's averted face to Logan's stoic one. He nodded slightly. "I see. Is one of you trained in any medical profession?"  
  
Ororo stepped forward slightly. "I am a registered nurse," she said.  
  
He nodded. "Good. I'm going to need you to stitch up my shoulder. My assistant didn't have time to. You're going to have to shave around the injury first. Can you do that?" She nodded, and turned to prepare sterile equipment.   
  
"Your assistant?" Xavier pressed. "Will he be joining us?"  
  
"She," Hank corrected. "No. Laurel will need to be in New York to present my findings at the press conference the day after tomorrow. She had to drop me off here and leave quickly for a number of reasons."  
  
"Laurel?" asked the Professor. "Laurel DuCrais?" He shared a glance with Storm, and then his eyes flickered to Scott.  
  
"Do you know her?" Hank asked. "I was aware that Herr Wagner here did; she mentioned him a few times. She said little of the school."  
  
"I do know her," he replied. "Ororo has met her, as well. She is Jean Gray's older cousin. We met when she was in her teens---she helped build the school. I was not aware that she had been working with you."  
  
"Only for the past two years or so," Hank said. "We met under….interesting circumstances."  
  
"She seems to do that," Logan muttered.  
  
Hank shifted his gaze over to Logan as Storm started stitching his shoulder. A slight tightening around the eyes was all he showed of the pain. "Ah. Yes. Logan. If you knew what you have put her through these twenty years…."  
  
This got everyone's attention but Kurt's. "Twenty?" Logan asked. "But it's only been eighteen since I-escaped."  
  
"Counting the year when you disappeared and the time that she found you," Hank said, gritting his teeth as Storm continued.   
  
"What??" Logan was about to tear someone apart with his bare hands unless he got some complete answers. Professor Xavier looked up at Logan.   
  
"You're---why did I never guess?" he sighed, and sank lower in his chair. "I heard that a childhood friend was missing and she had gone to look for him, but I never compared that with you…. It was so long ago, and I never knew her friend's name. I haven't seen her for a few years."  
  
Logan gaped at the professor, surprised to hear hesitation in the man's voice. That was coming from an unexpected source. "Don't worry, Chuck," he heard himself say. "I think you were a little stressed at the time."  
  
"People are often stressed when they're discussing Laurel," Hank rumbled, amusement in his voice.  
  
Logan's gaze shot right back to the furry man. His consolation did not apply to this McCoy, stitches or no. "What's going on here? I want answers, and I want them now." The last word was growled low, and his fists clenched, just aching to get out his claws.   
  
Hank blinked. "I'm sorry; I'm not usually this off-putting," he said in a gentler voice. "Getting attacked will do that to one, as I'm sure you all have experienced. I will give you what little information I have about you, Logan," he added, turning to him. "But I'm only able to contact Laurel after the press conference the day after tomorrow. She doesn't believe in cell phones," he said disgustedly. "I wish she would." He nodded at a nearby chair, and Logan sat down. Kurt stood at one shoulder and Scott at another.  
  
"Your name is Logan Contreras. If you have a middle name, I don't know it. You are two years older than Laurel, who refuses to give her full age, but is probably closer to forty-five or fifty. Your birthday is the seventeenth of April, and she celebrates it every year. You were childhood friends growing up, and then you joined up with the army after graduating high school and disappeared. She began the search for you and ended up in contact with General Stryker's men somehow. She doesn't speak of that, but I suspect that she was in the mutant testing facility at least once. After that period of about two years, you were both free again, and the search for you resumed. She has been over the globe a few times and has met many mutants. But she's still looking for you."  
  
"In contact," Logan repeated silently. "You meant she worked with him?"  
  
Hank raised an eyebrow. "If she did, she found whatever he was doing extremely tasteless. When she heard that a dam had blown in Canada, she went up there to find him, and I quote, 'dance upon his grave, so help me God'. Whenever his name is mentioned her eyes go cold and hard, and she still clenches her jaw when mutant testing is talked about."  
  
"Did she know I was a mutant?" Logan asked, rubbing his knuckles with his free hand. "Did she know about these?" He shot out his claws, making Hank peer closer with interest.  
  
"Fascinating," the Beast said, reaching out with his free hand and tapping one of the claws with one of his own. "Adamantium? Are those free-standing or bonded to a bone structure?" He slowly became aware of the others' stares. "Ahem. Sorry." He cleared his throat. "I don't know about those claws of yours. But I believe she knew you were a mutant, because at one point she had said something along the lines of knowing the extent of a healing mutant factor." Ororo had finished the stitching, and Hank's eyes were drooping. "I'm sorry, I believe I find myself a little under the weather right now," he said, placing a hand behind him on the table to steady himself. "Can we continue this conversation tomorrow?"  
  
To everyone's great surprise Logan nodded. "Sure. But I'd like to hear how you met her as soon as possible. Anything you can tell me. In the meantime, I'm going to continue to pump the elf here." He jerked a thumb at Kurt, who started in surprise.   
  
They moved forward to help shift Hank to the other, movable hospital bed so he wouldn't have to spend the night on the cold table. As everyone moved out of the medical room, Kurt turned to him. "Ah, Logan," he started hesitantly, but Logan grinned slightly, shocking everyone again.  
  
"Go to bed, Kurt," he said lightly.   
  
Now Charles Xavier was worried: this was the happiest he had ever seen Logan. As soon as it hit him, he was ready to freeze him in his tracks so that no one would get hurt. At the least he expected him to be tense and prickly. He reached out his mind and caught the tail end of that thought. Logan was still tense, so tightly wound it was probable he would not sleep tonight. But what Charles heard made him smile a little as well.  
  
"Go back to bed, Kurt, either hers or yours, I don't care. I have a last name. And a birthday!"  
  
~Did I spell Stryker's name right? 


	7. Sandwiches and Storytime

AN: you know, as soon as I figure out how to work italics on this thing, it'll get a bit more interesting.   
  
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As it turned out, it was not until later the next day that Logan was able to talk to Hank McCoy about what had happened. He was pacing in front of the medical room when Storm finally showed up.  
  
"Logan," she said in a surprised tone. "How long have you been here?"  
  
"Since you last checked on him," Logan growled. "Is he awake yet?"  
  
"The Professor said that he might be waking soon," Ororo said. "Why don't you wait inside? It'll be easier."  
  
Logan shrugged and followed her in. He pulled up a chair and sat backwards on it, leaning on the back, as she checked the still sleeping man's vital signs. Apparently pleased with what she saw, the weather witch laid out some pills. "If he wakes up still in pain, give him this," she said, pointing at one. "If he'd like to go back to sleep, have him take these; they're light sleeping pills." Logan nodded restlessly, and she gave him a soft, understanding look. He glanced away.   
  
Storm walked to the door, pausing and placing a comforting hand on Logan's shoulder as she passed him. "Logan," she said quietly. "Everything will be fine."  
  
He felt himself tense. "Sure, Storm," was all he said, but he clenched his jaw to hold back the thoughts he had.   
  
She frowned. "You may not believe it, but we care for you here very much," she said, a little firmer this time. "If this isn't what you're looking for, or if you find out something about yourself that you don't like, we will still care for you. You're still a member of the X-Men here, no matter who you were---before."  
  
Surprisingly, Logan found himself relax. "Thanks, Storm," he said, looking up at her. She smiled, her teeth as brilliantly white as her hair, and left. Logan sighed, and went back to watching the Beast sleep. To his surprise, the man had shifted and was staring back at him.  
  
"You don't recall anything?" Hank asked, in a voice that was gently puzzled. "You don't even know who you were before the Lake?"  
  
Not saying anything, Logan shook his head.   
  
Hank tried to turn, to look him straight in the eye. He attempted to push himself up into a sitting position and winced when his arm moved. Logan stood up to help him raise the bed to a folded posture. Hank nodded his thanks and leant back against the pillow again. "I didn't know your memory loss went that far," he said. "And it's lasted that long?" At Logan's nod he went on. "As a physician, I think I should tell you that complete recovery of your memory after that long is exceedingly unlikely. Even with a man of Xavier's power, it is possible that the brain cells that held the memory could be destroyed. Your earlier memories could be irretrievable."  
  
The pit fell from Logan's stomach. Is that why, after all these years, nothing could spark anything in his memory? The earliest back he could remember was the Alkali Lake facility. Would he never get his life back? "That's why it's important that I know everything I can," he struggled to say.   
  
Hank nodded. "Alright."  
  
Just then there was the small implosion of air that signaled Kurt's arrival. He glanced at the two other men. "Zhe Professor said zhat you vere avake," he said to Hank. "And that you vere down here," he added to Logan. "Vould anyone like lunch? I vould also like to hear zhe story vith Laurel." He didn't mention anything about the mark on Hank's neck, but Logan knew it was foremost on his mind.  
  
"A ham sandwich'd be great," Logan said. Kurt nodded, and looked at Hank.  
  
He grimaced and put a clawed hand on his stomach. "No thanks. I'll wait until everything settles down first."   
  
"Be right back!" Kurt said, and disappeared.   
  
"Isn't he the one who attacked the President about a year or two ago?" asked Hank, as soon as Kurt was gone.  
  
At the neutral tone of his voice, Logan furrowed his brow at the man, searching for any hint of censure. "He was under Stryker's control," he growled. "I believe you know what that feels like."  
  
A dark look crossed the Beast's face: pain, self-anger, understanding and fear. Logan felt guilty almost immediately for being so callous. "I do," Hank said quietly. He ran a hand across his arm, gently brushing the fur, his eyes on the claws at the tips of his fingers.   
  
Logan made a useless gesture with one hand. He had reacted badly at the supposed insult of his friend. Hank finally tore his eyes away and glanced at him. A slight smile tugged at his lips. "What?" Logan asked warily.   
  
"Laurel always said that you weren't good at apologies," Hank said. "She said one time that when you felt guilty you'd usually get angry right after. Before that happens, I understand. You were just being protective."  
  
Again it hit Logan; that's exactly what he usually did. How did this girl, whom he had never met, know him so well? But he looked up at Hank anyway and nodded.  
  
Kurt "bamfed" into the room again with two plates. He handed one to Logan and took up a half-sitting half-crouched position on the other table, with deference to his tail. He took a big bite of his roast beef sandwich, his sharp teeth sliding into the bread wickedly. "Fo?" he asked, his mouth full. "How ded you moot her?"  
  
Hank grinned, and Logan, once again feeling relaxed around this man, grinned back. "It was a while back," he started. "I was working on a form of gene therapy that would suppress the newly discovered X gene, as requested by the people who funded my studies. I had just finished a prototype of the therapy, a sort of super-condensed gel that would---" he paused. "Do you know anything about how gene therapy works? The newly developed studies that have started to help with cystic fibrosis and some forms of cancer?"   
  
When both of them shook their head, he sighed, but did not look surprised. "Currently not many people do, even after we mapped the genetic code. Most forms of gene therapy, for suppressing or replacing detrimental genes already in a living human being, are still in the trial stages. So what I created was something like a virus, which would implant the new genetic code, that of a human without the X gene, in the cells it infected. It was also sort of a cancerous virus, so it would infect all cells indiscriminately. But the gel I created was just the virus condensed. It wasn't the therapy in and among itself. But that's not what some people thought…"  
  
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Hank McCoy stepped out of his car and sighed happily. He was finally home. After almost a year of working in the lab in Florida, he was happy to take a break and go home. "Home" meant his house in the outskirts of Bullford, Montana. It even had a small laboratory that he had built with the money from his first published report. He unlocked the door and threw the keys on the countertop. He placed his hands on a side-table and did a quick jump and flip combo and landed on the couch. All what he wanted to do was relax. He kicked off a shoe and grabbed the remote with a foot. Flicking on the TV, he sighed again and relaxed against the cushions. No one knew he was home, and no one would bother him until he finally had to go to town to do some shopping. He was just fine with eating dried goods for a while.  
  
Suddenly the door burst open. A huge bright light was focused through the doorway and men in fatigues thudded in as Hank blinked in confusion. "There he is!" shouted one. "Get him!" shouted another. That got him into action. He leapt, bounded off the wall, and raced for the back door. There was another explosion, and the back door itself flew off its hinges and raced for him. Thanking his reflexes, Hank dove out of the way just in time. Men started to run in through the back door as well. They shot at him, tiny darts that Hank heard buzzing past him to smash into the walls. Without thinking, he snagged one out of the air, and stared at it as he leapt for the loft over his living room. It was some kind of tranquilizer dart! He grabbed the edge of the loft and looked up to see a man bring the butt of his gun down on his head. Hank fell and smashed into his favorite coffee table, creating a pile of splinters. The pseudo-army jerks grabbed for his legs and arms, and he tried to flip, to throw them off, but he only managed to turn himself onto his belly.   
  
"Thank you," came a voice, and Hank looked up to see a short man with glasses and a tidy goatee walk towards him. "How convenient." Behind him was another man carrying something Hank recognized right away: his virus! In a transparent cooling chamber. How did they get that?   
  
His attention was pulled away by a small, gut-freezing click-click. Another followed, and another. He was surrounded by men holding guns, pointing them right at him, and he knew that even if they were all filled with tranquilizers, it would be lethal. A pistol was set next to his head, and cocked.  
  
"I wouldn't move, if I were you," said the man with glasses, leaning over Hank's back. He felt the collar of his shirt get pulled away, and suddenly there was a burning sensation. It filled his entire mind, making him arch his back in pain. He might have cried out; he didn't know. But just as soon as the pain ran through every cell in his body, it disappeared. He felt the men move away. He tried to move his arms, to sit up, but he couldn't. They've paralyzed me, he thought to himself. Why?   
  
"Alright," came the man's voice. It suddenly felt as if there was a huge wad of cotton between Hank and the rest of the world. Everything felt numb, not a pleasant, half-asleep numb, but a sort of separated numb that was in itself much more frightening.   
  
"Sit up." Hank would have snorted, if he had the ability. They paralyzed him and then expected him to sit up? But suddenly his body did it. Hank was disconnected from it: he could only sit there and watch (metaphorically speaking) as his body levered himself up and sat.  
  
"Hm. Do a handstand." Hank's body did.  
  
"On one hand." It was done.   
  
"Stand on your head." Hank stared at the man, upside down, wishing he could at least glare or do anything to show his emotion.   
  
"Good. Sit again." He turned to his assistant with the virus. "Just like the other one. Make a note of that. She's almost ready for outside contact." Then he turned back to Hank. "What is this?" he asked, pointing at the virus.  
  
"It's a genetically mutated form of the virus Maxcillius hermanes, which was discovered four years ago by Maximillian Harper, Austrian geneticist, while perfecting the cure for the AIDS virus. It's named after himself and his favorite Greek god, Hermes, because Harper had no family and very few friends to name it after. Maxcillius hermanes is particularly distinguishable for its ability to infect more than one type of cell and insert its own genetic code into the other cell, much like the AIDS virus, so it can be reverse transcribed into the RNA---"  
  
"Enough," said the man, holding up a hand. Hank felt the flow of information cut off. He was shocked; all that had come right out of his head, like a floodgate had been opened and everything he knew had come out. "Will this stop mutations from showing?"  
  
"It will not stop mutations from showing. What the virus is engineered to do is replace a normal human genome that has the X mutation expressed with another normal human genome that does not have the X mutation expressed. It-"  
  
"Understood," said the man impatiently. "Will it work?"  
  
"It is unknown at this time because it has not been tested yet. The virus is just a prototype. It-"  
  
"Why hasn't it been tested yet?"  
  
"Because if the genetic code is to be copied into all cells, tissue as well as independent, it must be the same as the subject's original genetic code, with just one minor adjustment. If another's genetic code is implanted, the eventual result would be a genetic copy, a clone, of the other. Each virus must be made specifically to each individual subject. But that is immaterial because---"  
  
"Who is this prototype based off of?"  
  
"The original genetic code is mine, for reasons of speed and utility. It was never intended to be used because---"   
  
"Aren't you a mutant?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"What is your mutation?"  
  
"I have increased agility and strength."  
  
"Why don't you try this for us?"  
  
"Because I have no wish to attempt---"  
  
The man cut him off with a wave of his hand. "That wasn't a question. This is an order: drink it for us, now." His assistant pushed the cold vial into Hank's hand.  
  
No! Hank's mind cried. It's not meant to be drunk! This is just a prototype! It's not supposed to be used! But that didn't stop the slow inexorable movement of his hand to his mouth. The greenish goo flowed down his throat, and he could feel it working as he swallowed it. His throat convulsed, and he fell to the floor, thrashing and frothing, as the virus changed his genetic code much faster than anyone had expected it to. The pain reached a climax, and he knew no more.  
  
The man looked at the mutant, unconscious on the floor, as blue fur sprouted from his body and claws grew from his fingers. He watched, slightly horrified but concealing it, as the man in front of him turned into a large, blue-furred beast that was a horrid combination of some form of animal and human. He kicked the monster slightly.   
  
"Let's put this down as a failure," he said. There was a beep. The soldier that had held the vial was now talking into a cell phone. He looked up at the man.  
  
"General, it's the base. They said that they might have more information about a mutant possible for the operation you had." The soldier obviously didn't know what operation they were referring to. The general sighed. He had to get a proper assistant. One that he didn't have to worry about betraying him. His mind floated back to the mutant back in the base. Almost ready… she would do fine. "I want you to fly me back to the base, lieutenant, and then you will fly back here and dispose of this one. Make it look like an accident."  
  
"Sir." The man saluted.   
  
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dun-dun-DUN!!  
  
STAY TUNED!!!!  
  
(tee hee) 


	8. Coldhearted? Nah

AN: Mmm. Mmmmmm. Bored.... not good....   
  
On the other hand, you guys get another chapter!   
  
Saw M2 recently. Could they have jabbered MORE?? And what was with that dance/sex scene?  
  
FYI: a little blood in this one. Not for faint of hearts. Also a little short.  
  
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Laurel frowned, consulting her map as the gas jockey grinned at her and filled her bike. She ignored him: she was old enough to be his grandmother, for crying out loud. "Do you know how to get to Dr. McCoy's place?" she asked finally. The pimply young man's face fell, and he pointed up the road.   
  
"Just follow that road until it curves off to the right. At the last Shop'N'Go you'll see a small road to the right named Confluence Road. That's his. It'll take you up to his house. It don't go no where else." She nodded, folding up her map.  
  
Suddenly a helicopter thrummed overhead. It was heading right in the direction that the kid had pointed in. "Shit!" Laurel shouted. She pulled out a twenty, thrust it into the kid's hand, and threw herself back on the bike. "Keep the change!" she shouted over her shoulder as she sped out onto the road.   
  
Reaching speeds that were most certainly illegal, Laurel tried to keep pace with the helicopter. It quickly out distanced her, and by the time she hit the Confluence road, it was out of sight. The road was twisty, and uphill, and Laurel felt herself desperately losing seconds as she tried to gun her engine harder. I love bikes, she thought to herself, but God, sometimes I just wish I had wings.   
  
Just then the helicopter flew over her head, heading in the opposite direction. She slowed down, and cursed heavily. "I'll get you yet, Stryker, if it's the last thing I do!" she shouted to the sky, aware of how corny she sounded. "Might as well see who's among the survivors," she muttered, starting back up the bike again.   
  
The house on the top of the hill looked practically destroyed. There was a huge gaping hole where she assumed the front door was supposed to be. There was debris piled up against the outside walls from the helicopter's wind, and the front garden had been ruined by tracks of men landing heavily. A huge soot mark stood in the front walkway, from a large flash strobe, she suspected. Stryker had learnt.   
  
Pulling out her gun, she carefully stepped in the house. She surveyed the wreckage. The TV was still blaring to her left, and heavy footprints marked the way the 'soldiers' had taken, as did tranq darts stuck in the walls. There was a slight smell of burning past the TV room, and she investigated to find the back door, in a corner of the kitchen, likewise blown in. The back door leant heavily against the refrigerator, which was completely beyond repair, seeing as how it was the closest to the back door. To the left of the kitchen was a set of stairs, one going up and one going down. She stepped back into the hallway, following the marks, and then her eye lit on something huge and inky blue in the large vaulted living room, on the other side of the hallway. "Oh my God…."  
  
She rushed over to the figure. Grimacing at the terrible smell coming from some sort of green goo, she tapped his shoulder gently. He was out, but still breathing. She tested his limbs for broken bones, finding just a shoulder out of socket, and quickly popped it back in again. Her fingers touched the back of his neck and came away slightly wet. It wasn't blood; whatever it was made her fingers tingle and she quickly wiped it on the torn and stained carpet. It might have been acid; his neck certainly looked like acid had been placed on it in a small circle. "Sir?" she asked, trying to turn him over. He was heavy! "Dr. McCoy?"  
  
There was the sound of helicopter blades outside, and someone thudded in the living room. Laurel had just enough time to pick up her gun and shoot him. The bullet went through the man's calf, sending him down, and she was standing over him before he could move. "Jackson," she said in a disgusted tone. "I should have known. Were you the one that flew here?"  
  
The man's eyes grew big and scared as he focused on her face. "Yes, Impost-"  
  
She backhanded him with the gun. "Don't call me that! Where's Stryker?"  
  
"At the base." The mark on his face was turning bright red already from the power of her strike.  
  
"What were you planning to do to him? What are his plans?"  
  
At this Jackson's face locked. "I will not tell you."  
  
Her face likewise hardened. "I've killed men before, you know," she said conversationally, almost casually. "You all wanted me to be a killer. I can. Would you like to see how many times I can hit a man with a gun… and miss all the vital parts?" She pointed her gun down and pulled the trigger without aiming. The man's ankle shattered in a spray of bone and blood. His face paled and he clenched his teeth. "A taste of what you gave me," she said quietly. "Care to try any more, or is your palate clean?"  
  
"This guy was working on a cure for mutants," the man jerked his head at the still recumbent mass, his fingernails digging into his hands. "The General told him to try it, and it turned him into the blue freaky monster. I was supposed to come back and exterminate him. The cure failed."  
  
"What is Striker planning?" pressed Laurel. "Where is Logan??!"  
  
Jackson looked up at her, surprised. "The General doesn't know where the hell the bastard is," he rasped. "We had to work on a replacement. The Wolverine is out of our hands. The General needed him, too. He's got something big coming up…"  
  
There was a sudden roar behind her. Laurel whirled around to see the furred mutant race towards her. She backpedaled furiously, but he grabbed her and threw her head first into a wall. As her healing factor sped along, she straightened her neck and untwisted her spinal column. Laurel rose just in time to see him claw the throat out of Jackson, ending the miserable man's life in a quick spurt of blood. Then his eyes lit on her again.   
  
He was grasping her by the front of her leather jacket and knocking her against a wall before she could blink. This guy was fast!   
  
"What have you done to me?" he snarled, throwing her against another wall. Laurel assessed the situation: his eyes were crazy, and he wasn't going to calm down in a hurry. In the meantime, all that he was going to do was destroy his home and hurt himself. She had to stop this.   
  
She reached out beyond the warding stone and grabbed onto his mutation. Within seconds her muscles filled and bunched out on her arms, and her body strained against her clothing as blue fur sprouted over her body. She threw her legs around him and pulled him off of her, kicking him into the living room again. She liked this mutation! She reached him and grabbed him by the shredded remains of his shirt.  
  
"Look, buddy," she snarled around her jutting lower teeth (maybe not, she thought---I'd have to pay a fortune in dentist bills.) "I didn't do this to you. So just settle down."  
  
"Settle down?" he roared. "Settle down??!" He tore his way out of the shirt and leapt on her. She fell backwards, and used her legs to throw him into the opposite wall.   
  
"Never mind," she said, as he turned his body with blinding speed and used his momentum to push off the wall and come flying back to her again. "Why don't you just take a nap?" And she rolled over, snagged Jackson's fallen dart gun and unloaded three darts into his oncoming chest. He dropped like a rock, and again she had to dodge to avoid having him land on top of her.   
  
"I'm sorry," she murmured. What must it be like, having to be forced to take an untested genetic "cure", and waking up as a blue beast? Not for the first time her mind flickered back to Logan. She gently picked him up and maneuvered him onto the couch in front of the TV. Flicking the TV off, she went to go explore the rest of the house. He had to have a bedroom in here somewhere.   
  
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	9. God of Logic

AN: ok, this one is pretty long. That's alright, right?   
  
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Hank woke up under a pile of blankets. He pried his sore eyes open and glanced around. A thought tried to work itself into his fuzzy mind: here he was, in his own bed, but why on earth was it in the upper lab? He gazed around for a little while until his eyes lit on a quiet shape dozing in a corner. On the couch. That was also in the upper lab. It shouldn't be there, he thought hazily. The figure had a gaudy afghan draped over most of it, and what he could see was an auburn head, turned away from him and buried in the couch's cushions.   
  
He coughed harshly, feeling his body react differently to something. When he raised his hand to his mouth again, he felt something bump against it. Exploring with his fingers, he found two razor-sharp teeth, like bottom fangs, extend from his jaw. His jutting lower jaw. He held out his hands in front of him. They were huge, the backs covered with a thick patch of blue fur, and the bottoms like the thick pads of a monkey or ape. Hank added up all the traits and came to one conclusion: drinking the virus had mutated him again, into something more animalistic. He wiggled his fingers. Well, it was probable that he would be able to retain his dexterity, and thus continue with his research---  
  
A moan from the couch brought his attention back to the room again. The figure on the couch shifted uncomfortably. "No," she moaned, her voice and scent alerting to Hank that she was female and still asleep. "Noo….don't-don't do it to him. No….. Logan!" she screamed, sitting straight up on the couch. Her chest heaved as she wrapped her arms around herself, hunched over. Finally taking great gulps of air, she reached up and ran a hand shakily through her hair. She swung her legs over the edge of the couch and stood up, folding the afghan over the back of it. Hank was able to get a good glimpse of her now, and she sparked his memory.  
  
"Didn't I send you into a wall?" he asked, puzzled. She jumped and spun around, actually letting out a small squeak before she stifled it. He peered at her face again. "Weren't you furry… like I am?" he added.   
  
"Only momentarily," she said, in apologetic tones. "I'm sorry if I woke you. It-it was just a nightmare. How are you feeling?"  
  
"A little sore and quite a bit confused. What happened? I remember pain, and then, then attacking someone…." He trailed off. The memory of the man's blood under his claws suddenly sprung up, vicious and red, in his mind. "Is he dead? I attacked you…"  
  
"I have a bit of an advantage," she grinned. Then she sobered. "Yes. Jackson is dead, and I'm glad of it. Few people deserve death. He deserves to rot in hell."  
  
"Then you knew him. Are you working with the people who did this?" he questioned, a sweep of his hand taking in all that had been done to him.   
  
"Hardly. They wish." A short cynical laugh burst from her lips. "Tell me what happened, and I'll try to explain it as best as possible."  
  
He related his tale, and then fell silent, watching her as she considered. She was really quite young, he noticed. Something about the way that she carried herself and spoke had given him the impression of someone much older. Her auburn hair, almost red, was sleep-mussed and tangled. Her clear blue eyes had slight shadows underneath them, making them seem particularly bright. She was dressed simply, in a tank top and a pair of cotton pajama pants. He watched as she weighed her options, deciding how much to tell him or not.  
  
"The man who attacked you is known as General William Stryker. He did some original secret operative stuff about maybe twenty, twenty-five years ago, but the stuff he's doing right now should have gotten him thrown out of the army. He's got a secret mutant testing site up in Alkali Lake, in Canada. Ever since his son developed mutant powers, he's had a big thing against mutants. He's got some private funders who wanted him to create an 'ultimate mutant weapon'. Right about now he's trying to get something together that will further his agenda, but I don't know what it is!" She ran a hand through her hair in a frustrated manner.   
  
"What does this have to do with me?"  
  
"I think he's still looking for a 'cure' for mutants. I would guess that he's one of the higher ups that put the pressure on you to create a prototype of your virus."  
  
"How did you know about that?" Hank asked, aghast.   
  
"I make it my business to know." She turned around. "Do you want breakfast?" She checked her watch. "Or lunch, rather?"  
  
"Not until you explain everything fully," Hank said, crossing his arms. He shifted almost immediately because of his sore shoulder.   
  
She frowned. "That's going to take longer. We'll be eating tomorrow's lunch if you want the full deal."  
  
"Give me what you can, now. Including your name."  
  
"Alright." She sank down on the couch again and fixed his eyes with hers. "My name is Laurel DuCrais. I was in Stryker's testing facility about eighteen years ago." Her eyes went cold. "So ever since then I've made it my business to keep tabs on people like him. Washington's got a huge database with every person who's ever been considered a mutant or researched mutants. That Homeland Security stuff that they implemented sure came in handy now. I've got a friend who's good with computers."  
  
"How good?"  
  
"Inhumanly good," she said, flashing him a grin. "He managed to get me a tap into the base, and a record of anyone who accesses it. I've got a database of my own forming," she nodded at her laptop, on a desk across the room, "and it's a lot more complete than most countries' are. Mostly because I've met most of the mutants on it."  
  
Hank raised an eyebrow.  
  
"I've traveled some," was all she said with a shrug. "The last person that accessed the file on you in Washington was Stryker. And since his grasp of true biochemistry is weaker than his grasp of medieval dentistry, I knew he wasn't looking you up for a friendly chat. So since I was in the area, I tried to get out here as quick as I could to warn you. I wasn't quick enough, and I'm sorry" she said softly. There was a silence; Hank didn't know what to say to that. "So I got here in time to see Jackson come back to clean up Stryker's mess. That's one less flunky he won't see again," she said with some satisfaction.   
  
"What?" Hank looked up at her. "What would have happened if I hadn't, ah?"   
  
"Killed him?" she finished. "I'd have killed him. Maybe with a kitchen knife, after using all the bullets in my gun. He and I go back a long time," she said, her eyes becoming cool again. "Lunch?" she offered cheerfully, as if she hadn't said anything.  
  
"Uh, sure."  
  
"Don't worry, I promise I won't poison you or anything," she tossed over her shoulder. "My cooking isn't that bad."  
  
Laurel returned soon with some macaroni and cheese, with a few rolls on the side. "I wasn't aware I had rolls," Hank said. "I haven't been home for weeks."  
  
"I know," she said. "I found some bread mixin's in your cupboard."   
  
They ate in silence for a while, and then Hank shifted restlessly. "What are your plans now?" he asked.  
  
"I don't know, Dr. McCoy," she said, thinking. "If you're not going to need help around here cleaning up after Stryker's assholes, then I'll probably head back down to NY, see what's going on there."  
  
"You say you've got a lot of contacts," Hank mused. "Call me Hank," he added.  
  
"Ok. What about my contacts?"  
  
"I'm going to need some help to renovate my place. If I'm going to get a proper lab going here, then I'll need some things that will be rather hard to get in my current condition."  
  
"Why? You're not that hurt," she said. "What current condition?"  
  
"Large, blue, and furry," he said ironically, glancing down at his hands. "I don't think my former employers would appreciate my current appearance."  
  
Her eyes went soft with compassion. "There will always be people who don't mind, Hank. Try getting used to it for a while. And look at it this way---at least you don't have a tail: we'd have to cut holes in all your nice pants." She picked up the dishes. "Of course I'll help you."  
  
  
  
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And that was the way it happened. Laurel stayed with Hank to help fix his house up and learn to fly the helicopter that Jackson had left. As it turned out, he had a larger, more advanced lab hidden under his house; that was where the other set of stairs led to. He didn't need as much supplies and things that she would have thought, because whenever he needed something that the main lab didn't have, he just went downstairs. She was shocked at the mass of it all, and when he mentioned something about getting cheaper discounts at lab equipment when he bought in bulk, she wondered if that was where some of his research funding went. He still spent most of his time in the upper lab, however, so that is where she found him when a few weeks later she came barging into the lab. "Hank, listen to this." She grabbed his arm and yanked him into the TV room, where there was a large newscast on the events in the White House.  
  
"….and no details are out about the attacker itself, and the White House has refused to make a formal statement, but from some facts that have been released point to a mutant attacker. At this point in time we will stay here, at the White House, for---"  
  
"It's part of Stryker's plan. God," Laurel said, grabbing a fistful of her hair. "Why didn't I see it coming? What can I do? No one's going to listen to me: I sound like some kind of conspiracy theorist."  
  
"Laurel, calm down." She glanced at him: Hank had never seen her so agitated, and he looked pretty worried himself. "You said you knew plenty of mutants: surely you know some with influence. They can't all be circus performers and runaways."  
  
She froze, and looked at him with wide eyes. "Hank, you're a genius. No, you're a god: Hank McCoy, God of Logic. That's exactly what I'll do; I'll call Charles."  
  
"Charles?"  
  
"Charles Xavier," she said, reaching for the phone. "He lives in Westchester, New York. He's got a school there for mutants. Not widely published, of course, but it's there all the same."  
  
"How does he get the funding?" Hank asked, as he voiced most independent researcher's worries.  
  
"His family was pretty rich, and he's got unlimited funds right about now, thanks to some sound investing. A lot of real estate, too, but the stuff that the school's built on used to belong in my family."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Yeah. A cousin of my grandparents sold it to him a while back. I was there when he built the school, with Lensher and a few others. You know the saying you can't go home again?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Well, it's true. I can't get within twenty feet of that school. He must have four hundred kids now or something."  
  
"What's that got to do with---ah," said Hank, thinking. "You can't control more than about four mutants at a time, correct?"  
  
"Yeah. If I try to layer the protections any heavier on the wardstones, they shatter. I tried to make one with my aunt's diamond earring, when she lost the other one, but then I couldn't get it to last past six mutants. I'd go crazy if I went there." Finally she got through the line. "Charles? Hey, it's Laurel. Yeah, I'm doing fine. Look, I just saw the news. Right. Yeah. Can you-oh? Really? What have you heard?" Her face went pale. "My God. That sounds like Kurt. Yeah, Kurt Wagner, I met him in Germany. I can't believe---what? Jean and Storm? Good. Jean'll be able to talk to him, and he'd get along pretty good with Storm. Be nice to him, alright? Ok. Careful, Charles. Someone's planning something. Ok. Bye."  
  
"That was rather short," Hank said.  
  
"When two telepathics talk more information is always exchanged than you think," Laurel quipped, feeling a little more relieved. "He's got two of his team to track down the mutant who did it. It might be Kurt. God, I hope not."  
  
"From what you've told me about him, I'm sure he can handle himself," he replied. Laurel had used Kurt as an example for different looking mutants living among humans. She still shifted restlessly.   
  
"Something's coming. I can taste it," she muttered, stalking through the house. "And it's not chicken."  
  
"Well, at least you look human," Hank grumbled. He couldn't see why she was being so selfish. "You'll do just fine if the rest of the world is human. You're even a poster girl for getting rid of the mutants-it would certainly benefit you enough. Don't preach to me about being worried. A few weeks ago I was like everyone else; now I can't leave my house during hunting season. I've lost all contact that I had with my former life. People who didn't even suspect me before now won't have anything to do with me! I'll be lucky if I'm ever published again; I certainly won't be able to hold any press conferences," he finished bitterly.  
  
Laurel spun around. She couldn't believe that she had been so blind to Hank's situation. "Oh…. God, Hank, I'm sorry. And I can't say that I understand, because really I don't. I've never been in that situation. The closest I can compare to what you're going through is when I found my own mutant powers. And even then, I could hide them. Except when I'm around other mutants. I suppose that does make it seem like I shouldn't want any more mutants around, but I've never allowed myself to think like that. My parents were mutants, and even though my grandparents raised me, I never had to worry about being shunned from my family. I've always had my mutation. I know my grandparents would have loved me even if I didn't have a part of my parents, mutation-wise, within me. I've never felt the way you do. I'm sorry. Sometimes I wish that I did have the experiences that most other mutants had: the sudden jolt from being 'normal' into being a mutant, the masses of people looking at you with censure. I've felt it, but I don't think it's as strong as some of the others have. I'm afraid I've always had it too easy. I never know what to say when people are feeling down like that. I don't have the experiences they did, and it separates me from the people I wish I could be closer to." She paused, and took a breath. "I have had some experiences that have made me deal with prejudice straight up, but I have always had something to fall back on. My family, my love," she said, closing her eyes, "my hope. I shouldn't be around other mutants, Hank. I don't feel that I…..deserve them."  
  
She felt a large, hairy hand on her shoulder. "Is all this watching out for other mutants just that, then?" he asked softly. "Trying to make you more deserving of them? Trying to earn a spot amongst the mutants?" She glanced away, but he took her chin with a finger and turned her head back to him. "Laurel, stop trying to be a hero. Just be yourself. That's the most we can ask out of anyone, mutant or human." She sat down and leant against his large, soft frame on the couch.  
  
Finally: "For your information, Dr. McCoy, in most mutant communities, the ones without mutations are known as 'normies'. Everyone is human."  
  
"Most mutant communities, eh?" Hank asked, amused. "I wasn't aware there were some."  
  
"Mostly in the more liberal parts of San Francisco," Laurel replied, and grinned up at him. Her eyes were still moist, but she was content to sit back and just relax for a while.  
  
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	10. Diving for Answers

"Hold your little green tounge!" ~Sam the American Eagle.  
  
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But shortly after the mutant attack something came to her attention that Laurel had to deal with. Again she was watching the news, and at the tail end of the program, the announcer re-shuffled his papers and added, "In other news, the abandoned dam at Alkali Lake in Canada has sprung a leak, letting thousands of gallons of water in the local ecosystem. However, since no one lives in the nearby area, officials say that they will allow the ecosystem to regain its ecological balance."  
  
She broached the news to Hank over dinner. "I have to go," she said, slicing her ham. "That's where Stryker had his base. I have to know what went on there. I want to make sure that the computers are destroyed, and if Stryker was there. There's a pretty good chance of that happening, and if he was, I want to dance on his grave, so help me God."  
  
"It's all the way up in northern Canada," Hank said. "How are you going to get there?"  
  
"The helicopter. I've pretty much figured out how to use it. It's got enough gas in it for another trip."  
  
"Laurel," he said, looking up into her eyes. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"  
  
"I don't know," she shook her head. "But I have to go."  
  
"All right. Then I'm going with you."  
  
She bridled, and her eyes were wide. "Hank?"  
  
"Don't argue," he said, pointing his fork at her. "Just say 'Thank you, Hank'."  
  
"Thank you, Hank."  
  
Laurel grinned. But she was happy that Hank had decided to come with her. She liked his company, and she was afraid that she wouldn't have been able to do it alone. As they hopped into the helicopter, the next day, Hank gave her a puzzling look.  
  
"How did you learn how to fly this monstrosity, anyway?"  
  
"The internet," she shrugged. "And a bit of practice. Hand me my notes."  
  
"What???"   
  
"Just kidding," Laurel sang as the helicopter proceeded to take off. The first thing she had done had been to move the chopper to a different location a few miles off. She didn't want it connected with Hank's house, and when she saw his reaction at the sight of his garden when he first left the house, the last thing she needed was an irate scientist. She adjusted the navigation controls.   
  
It was a good chopper; within minutes they were hovering over the newly extended Alkali Lake. At the familiar territory, Laurel felt her stomach drop in fear. No, not fear: terror, a terrible combination of fear and panic that she could throttle down only so much. She brought them down next to the lake, and pulled out the scuba gear.   
  
"I thought you were just going to, you know, sort of move the water aside," Hank said, smoothing down his fur after the ride. The helmet looked absurdly silly on his large toothy head.   
  
"You have far more faith in my abilities than I do," she said, pulling a wetsuit over her swimsuit. "My control over liquids is no where near that powerful. I can only do enough to make sure the coffee won't splash out of the cup. Parting the lake is way beyond achievement. I'm not Moses." She checked the double tank that she had acquired for long term diving. "Look, I'll be down an hour. I know I've got more air than that, but that's all the time I want to waste here."  
  
Laurel slowly sank into the water. She loved scuba diving; everything was so quiet and peaceful. The water was like a muffling heavy blanket around her. The ground right under her feet showed strange markings, like the water had been held back by some unseen force, and then released again. But there were no signs of a wall or anything. It must have gotten pushed away, she thought. There's probably the wall or statue considerably downstream.   
  
As she slowly finned her way forward, she saw the top of a building. Metal bars had been wrapped around the sides of it, forming some sort of cage, but they had been cut open again. She gently brushed the tip of one of the bars with her fingers. The cut marks looked familiar: as if they had been slashed open with large animal claws. But not adamantium, she thought, peeling away part of a black fingernail. She carefully tucked it in the bag at her waist, and moved on.   
  
Finally she found the entrance to the underground base. Pulling out her flashlight, she made her way slowly down the halls. The light lit on the faces of fallen military men. Most looked like they had been killed by the terrible water pressure, but here and there some bore signs of a fight. She certainly wasn't going to move them. They all knew what they had been working for, and this was far more of a burial than she would have given them, recognizing a few faces. She began to chew on her lower lip as she made her way through the rooms to the main control room. The computer had been fully destroyed, she saw with satisfaction. Her eye lit on something small sitting on the ground. She picked it up: it was an earpiece, for a radio, with a tiny X in a circle on the outer side. Tucking that in her bag, too, she moved closer to the computer, and tried a little hacking. There was no power, but just in case anyone ever tried to power it again, she felt in the back and yanked out the motherboards. Crushing strategic pieces with her flashlight, she left the control room.   
  
A lot of people had died in one direction, she noticed, following through. What shocked her were the huge doors, with the slight opening down the middle. She frantically looked around for something to pry them open with. Finally settling on a piece of the fallen wall supports, she wedged the doors open enough so she could glance inside. It was another copy of Cerebro! She shone the flashlight on all the fallen wall panels that would have otherwise made it look exactly like the one in Xavier's mansion. There was a familiar wheelchair on the edge of the precipice, but she was relieved to see it was empty under all that fallen debris. The occupant of the one closest to her, however, wasn't so lucky.   
  
"Oh, Jason," she thought, covering her mouth. "God, I'm so sorry." The tubes from his head had been pulled out from the collapse, and the back of the wheelchair had been crushed. He would have died almost instantly, and for a moment she said a small prayer that he had. Finally she reached out and shut his eyes, and pulled one of the metal panels over his head. He deserved better.  
  
With that done, there was only one other room that she had to go see. She paused at the door before going in. Taking a deep breath, she swam inside. The table was still there, which she couldn't bear to look at, as were most of the machines. Most of them were destroyed by slashes from a blade. Had Logan been back here? She was examining the room when something caught her eye: the x-rays on the plates were different. The bones were thinner, more feminine. She should know. By those times were over she knew Logan's skeleton as intimately as her own. One drew her glance: instead of claws, the fingernails were lengthened inhumanly. She examined the x-rays, and then her eyes were dragged back to the table, that she hadn't been able to see before. In the liquid cell underneath the table was a woman.   
  
Laurel sped forward. She moved the top aside the best she could and tried to grab the woman. A familiar metal was coming out of her eyes and mouth, and Laurel tapped it with the tip of her flashlight. When she got the same ringing sound when she tapped the woman's fingernails, she knew that it was the owner of the x-rays. She hauled her out of the tank and steadied her against a shelf, thinking. She stared blindly at the shelves before she realized what she was seeing. A handful of Japanese fishing floats bumped softly against the top of the cabinet. She could use these to help raise the woman to shore, at least a little bit. It wouldn't be good as her BC, but it would be close.   
  
She managed to attach them to tiny wires, and then roped the wires around the woman's waist. They provided a little more buoyancy than she thought, and dragging the woman out of the room and into the open lake. She finally had to drop her weight belt and slowly fill her vest with air until they rose to the shore. Wrapping one arm around the woman's chest in a practiced manner, she slowly swam towards shore.   
  
"What on earth did you find down there?" Hank asked.   
  
"Stop talking and help me out," she muttered, spitting out her mouthpiece.   
  
"Who is she?" The woman hit the ground with a metallic clink.  
  
"Dunno." Laurel took the towel that he handed her. "Another victim of Stryker."  
  
"Laurel," Hank said quietly. "She's dead."  
  
"Not all the way dead," she replied, feeling like Miracle Max from "The Princess Bride". "She's actually in stasis. I know about healing mutations. No matter how bad it looks, they can always be revived. The hard part will be getting all the metal out of her."  
  
"The hard part??!" Hank tossed her scuba gear in the back of the chopper. "Laurel, how do you even know she has a healing mutation? Isn't this what we talked about?"  
  
"Look," Laurel snarled, feeling a bit fed up. "I spent eighteen months looking for Logan when he disappeared, and when I finally found him, I couldn't help him. I couldn't help Jason, who should have been safest of all in his family, and is now dead. I can't help Logan anymore because I can't find him! Stryker is alive still, I just know it, and I have to help this woman because she has been treated the worst of all and it's all my fault!!!"  
  
"Laurel…" Hank said, placing a hand on her shoulder.  
  
"You don't get it," she said, her voice harsh with sobbing. "You just don't get it. I was supposed to be her! I got away, and they had to find someone else. It was supposed to be me." She looked up at him, blue eyes filled with tears and darkened with guilt and sorrow. "I can help her, and I have to."  
  
Hank nodded. "Alright. Dry your eyes and I'll load her into the helicopter."  
  
"Thank you, Hank. Just….. Thank you."  
  
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	11. And he's just so cuddly!

AN: So I know I've gotten a few good reviews (thanks guys!!) but what I want to know is if anyone is really interested enough for me to continue. Really, I've got like 12 pages on my computer, but I'm not sure if I should post them or not. (And not all of them are flashbacks!) No, really, I'm not being a tease, and if one or two people are really interested, then I'll keep going. And in the meantime, our favorite Cajun!  
  
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When the doorbell rang a few days later, Hank was relieved. Laurel had spent the past two days pacing restlessly back and forth through the house. She would get on her bike and be gone for hours, and Hank worried for her. She was strong, but he wondered if this ordeal would break her. From what she had mentioned, this was the closest she had ever come to locating her good friend Logan, and yet she was still so far away. He had been asking her about how she knew Logan to get her mind off of things, but it turned out to be a bad idea. All what he had gleaned is that they were childhood friends, and anything else mentioned set her off again, pacing or moving away.   
  
He smoothed down his hair and answered the door. Blinking in shock, he stared at the young man leaning cockily against the doorframe. The teenager surveyed his form with cool eyes, the corneas black and the irises red. He was wearing a large trench coat, his thick dark auburn hair pulled back with a headband. He winked at Hank. "I be lookin' for de Belle," he said in a thick Cajun accent. "'Tis funny that I be findin' de Bet instead, no?"  
  
"Remy!" shouted Laurel, running past Hank and leaping into the young man's arms. "It's about time. What the hell took you so long?" she chided as the Cajun swung her around.   
  
"Oh chere, you know de Gambit takes his time," he said, setting her down on the ground. "I had tah make a stop along de way."  
  
She frowned at him. "You didn't steal anything, did you?" When he grinned, her mouth turned into a moue of cynicism. "You're going to keep your hands to yourself while staying here," she said, obviously trying to repress a grin. "Or if you take anything, you're giving it back when you leave, right Remy?"  
  
"Aw, but chere," he started, and she waved a finger in his face.  
  
"Remy, I expect you to be on your best behavior." When he grinned toothily at her, she smiled back. "Hank, this is Remy le Beau, otherwise known as Gambit. He's got the stickiest fingers and smarmiest manners in the entire South. Remy, this is Dr. Hank McCoy. He's the world's leader in genetic research. Be nice." The last sentence was directed at both men, and when Remy offered his hand, Hank took it warmly.   
  
"Call me Gambit," Remy said. He shot a glance at Laurel. "Even though this chere's got more names than King Tut, she don't understand a person's need tah pick dey're own. Laurel's always been good enou' for her. Now is you Hank, or just dah Beast?"  
  
"Either will be fine," Hank said, unable to stop himself from liking this roguish Cajun. He mulled it over in his mind as he led the way to the lab. The Beast. He liked it, he thought, grinning ferally.   
  
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Laurel watched Remy as she perched on the edge of the table next to the woman. "Well?"  
  
Remy tapped the metal leaking from the woman's tear ducts. "I think you overestimate my abilities, chere," he said. "She dead."  
  
"She's not dead. Look, just charge up the metal enough so that it melts slightly, alright? Once it's out of her body, then we'll see." Laurel could feel the healing mutation working away in the woman. It was slower than Logan's, but it was still there, keeping the body in stasis. It was as if the woman had been cryogenically frozen like they used to try in the nineties. She was still alive. The trick would be to get all the metal out before her body ran out of energy. Remy was her only hope: there was no way that they would be able to get the metal hot enough to get it out of her body without burning the woman to a crisp every time. Surgery to remove the metal was impossible. If Remy could charge it enough it would eventually melt, because adamantium doesn't explode. The only other person she knew who could help her now was Erik Lensher, and she didn't want to have anything to do with him. He had probably forgotten she even existed, even after she helped him and Xavier build the school.  
  
"Shall we begin now, or wait until after dinner?" asked Hank. Laurel shot him glance out of the corner of her eye. He seemed to like Remy. That was good, because the last thing she needed was two men having a testosterone war around her. She mused over it; Hank was mature enough to understand how to act around the younger, more impetuous Remy. And so long as Remy understood that Hank was her friend too, then everything would be fine.   
  
"Now," she said decisively. "The first place we want to start with would be the stomach. That's where it entered, and you can still see the rim of adamantium around the fill, right? Ok. Gambit," she said, deferring to Remy's preference of name, "I need you to try to charge the stuff in her torso first. The sooner we get her heart beating by itself, the better."  
  
Remy nodded, suddenly serious, and reached out a hand. He was sweating profusely by the time the adamantium started to melt. Laurel reached out with her slight telekinesis and power over liquid and began to push the sluggish, half-melted material out of the way. The adamantium began to crawl out of the woman's stomach wound, inch by inch. Hank stepped forward, to take an iron spatula and scrape it off and dump it into a nearby bucket. When Laurel moved the adamantium, she shifted the stuff higher in the woman's body to where Remy was heating it up, so all what Remy had to do was concentrate on one place at a time.  
  
When about six inches of the stuff had leaked from the woman's body, Hank called a halt. "You have to stop. She can wait, but if you wear yourselves out like this on the first time around, it'll be weeks before you can do it again. Let's just take this one step at a time, alright?"  
  
Remy nodded, and put a shaking hand out on the table. "He's right, chere. This thief feels like someone put Gambit trew de ringer."  
  
"Ok," Laurel said, knowing that she couldn't go on by herself. "What's for dinner, Hank?" she asked, sending him a weak smile. She knew he hadn't been planning on cooking dinner.  
  
"We're barbequing tonight," he said, surprising her. At her look, he smiled. "Who's the God of Logic?" he asked innocently. "I plan ahead." 


	12. Good Morning

AN: so I guess I'll put a few more chapters out.  
  
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The progress was slow. They couldn't do much more than they did on the first night; they only got rid of a few ounces a day. It slowed down even more when they started on the head. Finally Hank had to pull Laurel aside.  
  
"You're wearing yourself thin," he said, handing her a cup of coffee one morning. "Gambit can handle it-he recharges pretty quickly. Why do I get the feeling you're doing more than one thing at a time?"  
  
"Because I am," Laurel said, rubbing her eyes. She had looked in the mirror this morning and saw huge green shadows underneath them. She thought ironically that this was the first time she had even begun to look her age. "The healing process is interfering. She keeps on wanting to wake up. That one time she nearly did, and she almost killed us. She's a trained killer: if she woke up with the metal still clogging her nose or mouth or eyes, she could get to at least two of us before her body shut down again. I don't have any clue how good or how fast she is-the only way I would be able to judge that would be if she had mutant abilities in that area. But normie reflexes, especially when they've been trained well, can be good enough to take us by surprise. Besides," she added, taking a gulp of coffee, "think of the terror she would feel if she couldn't move or see for those few moments. I don't want her to go through anything worse. I have to keep her asleep, and the only way I can do that is by using my telepathic powers."  
  
"And they are rather weak," Hank said, nodding in understanding. "No wonder you look exhausted. But we're almost done, correct?"  
  
"Yeah," Laurel said. "I think we'll wait until she's healthier to ask if she wants the skeleton reinforcement to stay in. That way we can both recover at the same time. We'll be done with what's left in about two days. I'd like to get you to do an x-ray to make sure we aren't forgetting anything. No little shards and all that."  
  
"Sure," he replied. They both looked up as Remy stumbled into the room. Bleary-eyed and tousle-headed, he made his way staggeringly to the coffee pot, grabbed his tall glass, and poured himself a large one. After drinking down about half of the glass in one go, he blinked up at them.  
  
"Ready to start again?" Laurel asked cheerfully.  
  
"You know Gambit ain't a morning person, chere," he grumbled, pulling a stocking cap over his rumpled hair. "De only time I see de sunrise is comin' de other way aroun'."  
  
"Thief," she mocked.  
  
"Copycat," he returned, a grin finally quirking up a side of his mouth.  
  
"Swamp rat."  
  
"Canadian goose."  
  
"Tease."  
  
"Nun."  
  
Laurel blushed. She wasn't exactly a nun! Just a bit… choosy. "Bony little-"  
  
"Now now, children," Hank interrupted before it could get too far. "Let's put this behind us and get to work. Or do I have to separate you?" he asked, with his hands on his hips.   
  
"But Beast…!" Remy protested. "We just havin' a little fun."  
  
"Right. And I don't want to see that fun start a brawl in my lab," he said.   
  
"Come on, Cajun," Laurel said. "Race you to the lab."  
  
"Right behind you, chere," Remy said. But as Laurel sped down the hallway, he extended his bo staff and used it to vault over her head. "Or, right in fron' of you, I should say."  
  
"Cheating!" she called. Hank sighed, and lumbered after them.   
  
Laurel sped into the lab, running straight into Remy's back. She steadied herself, and looked up at him, frozen in place. She followed his eyes to where their patient was crouched on the table. Remy slid his eyes to her, and she could read the uncertainty in them. "Feeling better?" she asked carefully, stepping forward and slightly in front of the Cajun.   
  
She was close enough to see the woman's eyes flicker from ice-blue to black and back to ice-blue again. A certain stoniness crept into her features, and in alarm Laurel tried to reach her mind. She was blocked by a familiar feeling, and pushed Remy aside as the woman leapt, her fingernail-like claws extended.   
  
The woman was fast! Laurel could barely jump sideways as she felt the claws sink into her side, next to her heart. She choked, fighting for breath, as she looked into the woman's eyes. As she expected, there was no feeling, no remorse or even enjoyment in the blank stare. There was a snick, and Laurel felt the claws withdraw as the woman turned to meet Remy, bo staff extended and standing at ready. She fell against the wall behind her, as Hank entered the room.   
  
"Laurel!"  
  
"It's alright," she said, moving her hand from her side slightly. "Help Gambit. I'll be fine."   
  
Hank looked down to where the wound in her side was closing up even now, and nodded. He leapt across the room and hit the woman with a balled-up fist on the shoulder as she slashed at Remy. She staggered, and spun to cut him, but he leapt and sprung off the sides of the wall, coming back to land in front of her. During that time Remy put his staff down and jumped against it, using both feet to kick her in the back of the head. This sent her forward into Hank's reach, and this time he took both hands and clubbed her on the back of the neck with all his strength. To his horror he was sure he felt bones crack. But she was up and recovering much quicker than that would have allowed.   
  
Laurel focused. She could feel the control serum lingering in the woman's mind. It was still a liquid, a chemical floating around in her spinal column, and she had slight control over it. She reached out with her father's power and began to push all the liquid out of the woman's system. It took the past of least resistance: the way it had come in.   
  
The two men stopped as the woman collapsed and fell to the ground, clutching at the back of her head in pain. Hank stepped forward to take a closer look, and it was only the sweep of Remy's bo staff that knocked him out of the way of her claws as she lashed out. "Careful, mon amie," Remy said. She went back to her neck, and Hank could hear a hissing sound. From what he could see it was as if someone had dropped acid on the back of her neck, in a familiar circle-patterned burn. But it was actually bubbling and coming out of her neck. He shot a glance at Laurel across the room. She had her hand at her head, concentrating.   
  
The last of the control serum was pushed out of the woman's neck, and Laurel sent her to sleep again, silently apologizing for all the pain. Her legs were suddenly unsteady and she sank to the ground. Remy was at her side in a heartbeat as Hank levered the woman to the table again.   
  
"You alright, chere?" he asked.   
  
She nodded and tried to stand. "That took a lot out of me," she gasped weakly. "I'll-I'll be fine."  
  
Remy caught her as she began to fall again, sweeping her up in his arms carefully. "Oh no you don't, petite. You is goin' back to bed right now."  
  
"I agree," Hank said, standing behind him. "The last thing you need to do is try to work more. We'll bring you lunch after you take a nap. In the meantime," he said, turning to gaze at the patient, "I'll use this as an opportunity to run the x-rays and re-organize my lab after this little fiasco." His eyes softened. "Go to sleep. You can't do everything." 


	13. Didn't I just

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"Fine, Gambit, I'll shuffle the deck."  
  
"Don' let her, Beast-de chile cheats as bad as I do."  
  
"That's saying quite a lot, Gambit."  
  
"Gambit, what I have I told you about calling me 'chile'? I'm old enough to be your mother."  
  
"Aw, but chere, you look younger ev'ry day."  
  
"A physical impossibility, Gambit, considering that she doesn't age."  
  
"Stop tiltin' your glasses at me, M'suier Beast. You done wid dem cards yet, petite?"  
  
"Alright. Here you go." The voices were friendly and teasing, but unfamiliar.  
  
Yuriko slit her eyes open to see an odd trio playing cards at a lab table across the room. She took a quick inventory of her surroundings: she was alive, healed, in a soft bed in something that looked like a medical laboratory. There was a metal table to one side that seemed familiar, with two buckets underneath it. The only other piece of furniture was the table that the trio were playing on, all the glassware and microscopes pushed haphazardly to one side. Two were in chairs, the woman with her back to Yuriko, and the young man in an old t-shirt and a trench coat draped over the back of the chair he was sitting in. The last person was a huge muscular creature with blue fur all over his body and sharp teeth that glinted when he talked. He was dressed, oddly enough, in a loose pair of sweat pants and tank top, with thin wire-framed glasses perched on the end of his nose. Something was familiar…..  
  
The young man looked up, caught her awake, and nodded, nudging the girl with an elbow. She turned, and gave a pleasant grin at seeing Yuriko awake. "Hello again," she said in a cheerful voice as the others eyed her warily. "Are you….ah…. yourself?"  
  
That was when the shock hit Yuriko's mind: for the first time in months, years, she was able to think and move by herself. She remembered Stryker and his plans, and the things that he had her do. She remembered savoring the moments in her cell when Stryker had been too busy to "use" her, just moving her own fingers. For a long time whenever he had used her, she didn't pay attention to what her body was doing; she just floated instead, trying to block everything out. She remembered the other mutant, who had also once been Stryker's experiment. The pain from his set of adamantium claws had shocked her into watching what her body was doing. And when he had filled her with liquid adamantium, she remembered the moment of bliss that she was free when the adamantium stopped the serum's flow to her mind.  
  
Then she remembered where this trio looked familiar. She had woken up, and the serum had finished its course into her mind, controlling and forcing her to fight. She frowned in perplexity as she looked at the young woman again. "Didn't-" she coughed, her voice gone who knows how long without use, "Didn't I…?" She didn't know how to finish the sentence.   
  
"Kill me?" the woman said, raising an eyebrow in unmistakable good humor. "Yeah. Didn't last too long, did it?"  
  
"Much to our disappointment," interjected the blue furry man. The woman narrowed her eyes and stuck out her tongue at him.   
  
"What happened?" Yuriko asked. She was at a loss with these people, but they had taken her down once before, how?, so she didn't want to fight them again.   
  
"You got to be more specific when it comes to dat, m'dame," said the young man with a thick Cajun accent. His thin agile fingers shuffled the cards expertly as they began to glow.   
  
"Gambit's right," the young woman said. She paused. "Wow, I never thought I'd say that," she chuckled. At Yuriko's glance, she shook her head. "I'm sorry; I've been so forgetful lately. We should introduce ourselves. That's Gambit, with the cards, behind me is the Beast, and I'm occasionally known as Xerox or Mimic."  
  
"Lady Deathstrike," Yuriko said with bitterness. She didn't like the code name that was given to her, but since everyone else was using one…. She glanced at the young woman again. That's another reason why she looked so familiar: bright auburn hair, almost fiery compared to the darker red of the young man, ice-blue eyes, a short, slim body….. "It's nice to meet you, Imposter," she said, her voice neutral.   
  
The woman's head jerked back to her. "So you do know," she said quietly. "I've never gone by that name. Never. The dogtags were destroyed as soon as I escaped. I hacked into their system later and deleted all my files. I'm sorry that my escape made them find you. I would have killed them all if I could. Stryker," she said, spitting out the word like it was a rotting slug stuck in her mouth, "has always evaded my grasp." Yuriko watched the others' faces as Imposter spoke. Gambit's held surprise at the mention of escape and the hatred in the woman's voice. The Beast closed his eyes painfully for a second and gritted his jaw. He knew; the former one didn't. She watched the younger man's face carefully. He didn't even show recognition at Stryker's name. So that meant one of two things: either he's the best actor Yuriko had ever seen, or they weren't working for Stryker or his men. She didn't think it was the former.   
  
Imposter finally sighed. "Look, I'm sorry. I let my emotions run away with me too much, sometimes. I-go ahead and call me Laurel. Really, I don't like to use the code names other mutants do. What's your real name?"  
  
"Yuriko. Yuriko Oyama." This time she felt herself returning Laurel's smile.   
  
"Ok. And this is Remy and Hank, by the way." Laurel pulled her chair closer to the bed. "What would you like to know first?"  
  
"Wait, before we get into the long dialogues, how are you feeling?" asked the Beast in a kindly but professional manner. "I'd like to make sure that there aren't any lingering harmful effects."  
  
"Hank," Laurel said, rolling her eyes. "She's got a healing mutation, for goodness sake. She'll be fine." He frowned at the young woman, and returned his gaze to Yuriko.   
  
She found herself smiling at the group's exchanges. "I am fine," she said calmly, with just a hint of a smile. "Just a little tired." Her stomach made a noise. "And hungry," she said.  
  
"Dat's something I can fix," spoke up the Cajun. "Yuriko, you like spices?"  
  
"No way," The Beast vetoed before she could open her mouth. "She hasn't had anything for weeks. What you cook, if you call it food, Gambit, is not healthy right now. If you make anything, make it at least slightly blander than the stuff you serve us."   
  
"Gambit, you can make me some gumbo," compromised Laurel. The younger man nodded and left, grumbling about the Beast's delicate stomach.   
  
She turned back to Yuriko. "Well?"  
  
"Who are you?" she asked, bewildered.   
  
"Didn't I already…?" Laurel asked, then smiled. "No, I'm kidding. I suppose you want the how with the who, right? I got here in time to stop Stryker's flunkies from killing Hank, because he was looking into Hank's research a bit too closely, if you know what I mean. When I heard that the dam blew in a… familiar territory, we went to check it out. I found you in the tank, and when we got back here, gave Gambit a call because he's one of the mutants I knew that could get it out of you. It's been at least," she tilted her head back, thinking. "At least three weeks since I pulled you out. And we went out the day that the news went on, so it was what, a day or so after it actually happened? You haven't been out that long."  
  
"I see," Yuriko said. She noticed the fading circles under the girl's eyes. They had worked hard to repair her, but now what? What were their motives? "What's going to happen for the next three weeks?" she asked delicately.   
  
Laurel blinked, as if the thought had never occurred to her. "What's going….? Oh. Well, um," she said, looking at the Beast, who shrugged slightly. "We didn't really have any plans. It was just sort of one thing at a time, you know? Get you healed up, and then whatever you wanted to do…" She nodded at Yuriko's hands. "If you want, we can get rid of the skeleton for you," she offered. "I didn't want to do it until after you woke up, because sometimes something like that can be useful."  
  
"Useful?" Yuriko hadn't even thought of her adamantium skeleton. She wasn't consulted when it was put in, and she hadn't really been herself after it was finished.   
  
"Yeah, like you'd never have to find a letter opener again. Or a can opener, for that matter. And you can flip someone a hell of a bird," the younger girl said, the corner of her mouth twitching.   
  
"There's no reason to decide right now," interjected the Beast. "Why don't you stay here for a while and get used to being yourself again," he invited gently.   
  
Get used to being yourself again; Yuriko mulled the thought over in her mind. It did sound nice. Finally she looked up at the pair and nodded. "I will," she said.  
  
"Will what?" asked Gambit, coming in with a pot of something in his hands. The scent wafted to Yuriko's nose and made her stomach rumble loudly.   
  
"I will try your gumbo," she said. "No matter what he says," she gestured at the Beast. "Pass it over." 


	14. Uno, philosophy, and a really long autho...

AN: Watch it folks, this is a looong author's note. First of all, on behest of a few (Angel and randomgal and Your Worshipfulness and anyone else who feels like reading) I will continue posting. And here's a little paragraph on my opinions of everybody's favorite Cajun: (disregard if you don't want to hear me ramble)  
  
You know, it's really too bad Hank McCoy (one of my favorite characters) with his dry sense of humor isn't going to be in X3--you don't really think they're going to have three blue characters, do you? Especially one that's blue and furry, which will be really hard on make-up time unless they CGI him (which, when you take a look at the new Hulk movie, doesn't turn out as well as it should). Ok, so they might put him in as a non-furry mutant, like they showed that little clip of him in X2, but I feel that the fur is part of what makes Hank so darn cool!  
  
But they've got to put Remy in, especially after giving us that tease of his name on that list (did everyone see that?) It's not going to be that hard. Just find a guy who can do a reasonable Cajun accent (let's face it, some of the other accents in the movies aren't that good). You've got to admit, Gambit with his tall, lanky swaggering figure and ~admittedly~ substandard morals (even though we all know his heart is in the right place.. hee hee) would be a really good foil for Alan Cumming's portrayl of a devout but slightly reserved Nightcrawler. Not to mention the romantic tension that could be created between a Rogue/Iceman/Gambit triangle. .....Of course, even though we all adore Shawn Ashmore as the cute, responsible but cool Bobby Drake, he wouldn't be able to hold a candle to a properly done spicey Cajun.   
  
Hm.. Maybe they shouldn't put Gambit in the movies. Who on earth could ever live up to my wonderful mental images? Garcon, I'll take two of those, please. Yes, that's right. Make mine a spicey Cajun sandwich. What? Oh no, I'll be in the middle. Great. Could you give us a few minutes, please?  
  
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"Draw two??"  
  
"Sorry, Hank. You're getting too close to Uno."  
  
"So you goin' to join dese X-Men, m'dame?" Remy asked, slanting a look at Yuriko from his dark eyes. Laurel and Hank fell quiet again, listening to Yuriko's response. It had been two days since she had woken up, and while they had spoken much about the situation and how she came here, Yuriko herself said little.   
  
"I don't think so," the older woman said as she laid down a card. "I would just like to take a break from fighting and taking orders for a while."  
  
"They don't just fight and take orders," Laurel objected. "They help people."  
  
"Hm." Yuriko considered her cards as Remy changed the colors again. "And this Magneto, he helps people too?"  
  
"Well…." Laurel hesitated. "I don't like to point people either way, unless they need serious help, in which case I send them to Xavier's. I've never sent one to Lensher. He's not all bad….just a little….ruthless when it comes to his goals. He takes care of his mutant friends, but he hates the normies, and sometimes when people get in his way, mutant or normie, they're screwed. He thinks that mutants are the next step of human evolution."  
  
"Which has never been proved," Hank interjected.   
  
"Hey Beast, you a scientist. Why did we start to mutate?" Remy asked.   
  
"Humans are far more susceptible to mutation than other creatures, mostly because we change our environment so much," the large man replied. "Cancer was a form of mutation among the cells, and what we're looking at today is simply the next step: mutation among the genetic code. A permanent, heritable mutation."  
  
"So it is heritable, then?" asked Yuriko, a considering look crossing her face.   
  
"Well, in most cases, yes." His voice took on the lecturing tone that Laurel had come to associate with Hank's scientific thinking. "Mutants have the expressed X genome, and even though no one has really figured out how it works, general scientific opinion is that it s a recessive trait, so according to basic genetics the offspring have a one in four chance of being a mutant. When two mutants create young, the offspring has no choice but to be a mutant. The uncertainty lies in what the mutation will be. Usually the parents' mutations will have some affect, but occasionally the resulting mutation of the offspring will be completely different. It's the 'wild card' so to speak that created the mutation among the parents in the first place. There are some cases where two mutants have 'normal' offspring, but that just means that the resulting mutation is so slight that there is almost no effect on the young."   
  
"Thanks doc," Laurel said sardonically. She winked at the scientist, who made a mock-offended face at her.  
  
"Stupid normies," Remy muttered, thinking about something. "Why can't dey just accept us an' move on?"  
  
"Because they're afraid," Yuriko said. "I got a chance to see a lot of fear from them. They think that we're different."  
  
"We're not," Hank said, also frowning.  
  
"This from a six foot blue furry critter," Laurel said absently. "They'll figure it out eventually. Either that or we'll exterminate them." The others stared at her in shock, their mouths hanging open; she didn't notice. "Uno," she said cheerfully, laying down her second to last card.  
  
"What was that?" Hank stuttered.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Why do you think we'll exterminate them?" Yuriko pressed.   
  
Laurel shrugged. "Well, having this pretty much living forever mutation has allowed me to see things in the larger picture for a little while. And even though no one has really figured out exactly how the mutated X gene is passed throughout a genealogy, most biologists will tell you that you can't really apply population genetics to humans anyway, much less evolutional population genetics, because humans breed differently from all other creatures on the planet. But, what I figure is this: only a few people are mutants, right? But they got their mutations from a parent who had the X gene, and chances are that parent also had other kids. So we've got potential carriers, probably about two or three for every mutant, right?"  
  
"More likely about four or five," Hank corrected, mesmerized.   
  
"Ok, four or five. So, barring accidents, because humans also have the best survival rate for offspring, we've got four or five other people who will have one mutant kid, or at least two or three other carriers. With all the other carriers wandering around, we've got a pretty good chance that the number of mutants will shoot up quickly."  
  
"Shouldn't that be happenin' right now, chere?" Remy asked.   
  
"Not necessarily," Laurel said, pointing a finger at him. "We're in the earlier stages right now. That would have happened if people didn't have this thing about fear and hatred of what they don't understand, namely mutants. How many mutants have been denied reproduction rights because of politics and other things? And I'm not just talking about ways like Yuriko and I have been, uh, out of the running for the past few years. I'm talking about people who don't date, who stay away from other human contact, people who will probably never marry unless to another mutant, which also narrows down the numbers that would swell the, ahem, 'mutant brotherhood', to coin a phrase."  
  
"There are the darker reasons as well," Yuriko said. "Mutant babies smothered or exposed at birth, anti-mutant lynch mobs, and mutant suicides."  
  
"Right," Laurel nodded, her eyes resembling tiny chips of ice. "People who didn't even have a chance. I suspect that the numbers of mutants today are also drastically understated, because of people hiding them, or being hidden, or running away, or all sorts of things that prevent mutants from being in the public eye. But needless to say, due to all the mutants in the closet and the carriers, the number of mutants will eventually go up. It's inevitable. In order to stop the 'mutant epidemic' as anti-mutant groups like to call it, not only would they have to put away all mutants and families of mutants, they would also have to set the best scientists on figuring out what causes the X gene to mutate anyways, because I suspect more and more people are also getting mutated right now as we speak." She paused, and ran the last sentence through her head. "Well, they'd have to get the second-best scientists working on it, because the top four leaders of genetic research today are mutants themselves," she amended, grinning at Hank. "Only one of them blue, of course."  
  
"The top four?" Hank started, but Yuriko held up a hand.   
  
"Can we talk about who knows whom later?" she asked. "I want to hear the end of this. Go on. How are we going to exterminate them?"  
  
"Well, by the time people figure out that mutants can't be stopped by prevention, they're going to move on to extermination, right? But by that time, the mutants themselves are already going to be fed up with the treatment they've gotten so far, because let's face it, if no one does anything soon, it's just going to get worse. Even if someone comes up with a so-called cure, there will still be the ones that won't want to be normal, that don't believe that they should hide themselves. And those numbers will get larger as time goes on. So we're going to have practically a world-wide civil war, normies versus mutants, if there are no peacekeepers. And let's face it, with the variety of mutations floating around now, and the projected variety we'll have by then, it won't be a contest at all. We'd wipe them off the face of the planet. No technology can keep up with some of the mutations I've seen now, and no sane mutant will be fighting on the side of the humans that want to enslave them," she sent a glance of apology to Yuriko. "Even if some do, unless they are insanely talented and strong, they'll be killed instantly by the other millions of just as powerful mutants on the other side. The war will be shorter than the Six Day War. But I have faith that before that happens, the people in charge of governments will eventually figure that out, too, and try to put a stop to all this. Maybe by that time normies will be a minority, because that's the way they're heading right now. And all what we'll have to deal with will be normie prejudice instead of mutant prejudice."  
  
"You have that much faith in the government?" asked Yuriko skeptically.  
  
"Well, by the time they figure it out, the people in charge will know some mutants personally," Laurel said. "Either by relation or by friendship, hopefully. We can't keep on putting so-called pure-blooded bigots in office now can we? Eventually someone's going to have a cousin, or a niece, or an old high school friend who's a mutant."  
  
"Or someone will have to broadcast this idea to the world," Hank said thoughtfully.  
  
Laurel caught his look. "Oh no," she said. "I can't do it. No one would believe me. There aren't enough facts in my thinking. I wouldn't be able to prove it. This is just me thinking out loud, here."  
  
"But it makes sense," Yuriko said, in the same thoughtful tone Hank used.   
  
"Fine---you do it."  
  
"Let's not turn this into an argument, mon amies," Gambit said. He laid down his final card. "I win."  
  
"I didn't hear you say Uno!" protested Laurel.  
  
"Of course not, chere. You were talkin' too much." He winked at the party and stood up to stretch. "Gambit's getting lazy just sittin' aroun' doin' nothing. Hey, m'dame, you wanna try Gambit in a friendly fight? Dis thief promises he'll go easy on ya."  
  
Yuriko placed her cards down and stood up too. "Very well. But it won't be I who will be in trouble," she added, with a light, quick smile.   
  
Hank sighed and watched the two begin to warm up. "I guess I'll move the furniture out of the way."  
  
"Just the breakable stuff, Hank," Laurel said absently, watching Yuriko. "The tables won't break, and it'll give them leverage and objects to work around." Her eyes narrowed as she thought. "Hmm…."  
  
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Was that author's note longer than the chapter itself? Oh dear.... 


	15. Shopping and screams: don't they just fi...

AN: Ok, action on the horizon. Everyone watch out. Oh, if you'd like to submit votes for favorite villians not seen in the movie, please do so now---I'm still writing some fight scenes.  
  
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Yuriko looked up from her borrowed book in the den as Laurel set down a basket of laundry. "It's rather quiet today," she said. "Where is everybody?"  
  
"Hank's been in the lower lab for hours now," Laurel said, pulling out a shirt. She frowned at the five holes in the side. "And I sent Gambit to the grocery store-that boy eats enough for eight." She slid a glance at Yuriko. "How're you feeling?"  
  
"Fine," the older woman said. She set down the book and reached for the clothes to help folding.   
  
"Got any plans as of yet?" Laurel asked. "You're restless here, I can see that. Did you want us to help you remove the adamantium?"  
  
Surprised, Yuriko shook her head. "I think I'll keep it in for now."   
  
Laurel nodded. "Have you given any thought to where you wanted to go?"  
  
"I-no," she said. "I don't know what I should do." That was true: she'd need to get a job, and she hadn't the faintest where to start looking.  
  
"Do you have any family left?" Laurel asked gently.  
  
She shook her head. "All what I had was my father, and he died a few years before." She didn't need to say before what.   
  
"Um, can I suggest something?"   
  
She looked up at Laurel, who tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear nervously. "What?"  
  
"I have a friend in Seattle. He runs a dojo for kids with problems," she said, picking her words delicately. "He's always looking for teachers, and if they have the ability to move quickly and defend themselves, it's all the better."  
  
"Problems?" Yuriko echoed. "You mean kids with mutations."  
  
"Most of them," Laurel conceded. "Some of them are just kids from bad homes, or the streets. Gregory teaches a mixture of ty kwon do and judo, with a bit of yoga thrown in. He'd appreciate another helper, even for a little while. It'd be enough to get you back on your feet, I think."  
  
"You mean I'd get the job, just like that?" She didn't believe it.  
  
"Greg doesn't have to know any details," Laurel said. "He knows that I travel and meet quite a few interesting people along the way. He'd probably give you a week for a try out, just to make sure, but if I put in a good word, he's sure to give you that chance." She paused. "I don't put my neck out very often."  
  
Yuriko knew enough of Laurel by now to know that the last sentence was a blatant lie. But she also felt gratified that Laurel decided to trust her. "It sounds like a good idea," she said hesitantly. "But I don't have any money, or clothing, or anything." She had been wearing a pair of Gambit's pants for days now, because even though she could fit into Laurel's shirts, her pants were much too short for her.  
  
"That I can help with," Laurel said cheerfully. "Come on, let's go shopping."  
  
They ended up in a combination Gap and Goodwill-something called the Buffalo Exchange-close to the center of Bullford. "You know," Laurel said conversationally as she handed Yuriko another set of pants through the dressing room. "You don't exactly have nothing. There's still those fishing floats that I pulled from the base."  
  
"What?" asked Yuriko, popping her head out of the dressing room suddenly. "What fishing floats?"  
  
"I saw some floats in the lab," Laurel explained, a little surprised at the woman's earnestness. "I brought them up with me. They're still sitting in Hank's lab somewhere---"  
  
"I can't believe you grabbed them," Yuriko said, slipping back behind the curtain. "They're not fishing floats."  
  
"Just glass baubles, then?" Laurel asked, browsing the nearby racks.   
  
"No. It's a part of my mutation," came the muffled voice. "They're insubstantial things. I made them between operations," she said, her voice growing distant. "There were so many things floating about in that lab: memories, echoes, old smells and voices. I catch them and make them into solid forms."  
  
"Memories?" Laurel asked. Something tugged at her mind, but she couldn't think of it.  
  
"Uh-huh. The dark blue ones are someone's memories. They're something that someone's forgotten. I don't know who they belong to, however." She stepped out of the dressing room. "Well?"  
  
Laurel had encouraged her to get warmer clothing, seeing as how it would soon be fall and Seattle was a chilly town at the best of times. Yuriko was wearing a deep blue pair of slacks and a long sleeved shirt with a false polo collar underneath. "Stunning," she said, because that was what the woman was. "Add that to the pile. How about a skirt?"  
  
"A skirt?" Yuriko asked uncertainly. "I don't know…"  
  
"Come on, you've got great legs. Show them off a bit. How about this one, at the knees?" she held up a simple tan skirt with a nap that resembled suede. As Yuriko shrugged and went in to try it on, Laurel tossed her a buttery yellow top with fluttery cap sleeves to go with it. "Are the stuff forever trapped in the baubles?" she asked.  
  
"No," Yuriko's voice was muffled again. "If you break them, they get loose again."  
  
"And then you have to catch them?"  
  
"Uh-huh. Sometimes if the owner of the memory or thought is close enough, they'll just join up with her. I've seen it happen before. Sometimes they just remember what they had forgotten." She stepped out of the room. "The skirt's fine, but I just think yellow's not my color," she said in a fluttery affected voice.   
  
Laurel grinned. "Maybe not." She tilted her head at Yuriko. "I think the burgundy shirt we picked out earlier might go well, though. Hey, I know a mutant who can make images in the air. Between you two, you might be able to set the snow-globe business on its ear."  
  
"No thanks." Yuriko replied, humor in her voice as she stepped out again. "I think you're right," she added, turning a little in the mirror. "The burgundy does go well." At the sight of the once-hardened killer acting like a normal woman buying clothes, Laurel had to smile. "You are telepathic," Yuriko said, slipping back into her normal clothes. "You might be able to tell who the memories belong to."  
  
"I'm not that strong," Laurel demurred. "But I'll give it a try." She almost didn't want to touch the memories of some of the people she had known were in the lab. They paid for the clothing, as well as a bag for Yuriko to carry them in, and went in search of undergarments.  
  
By the time they got back to Hank's house, they were so loaded down with clothing and bags it was hard to move.   
  
"Hey Hank," Laurel called down the stairs. "Yuriko's gonna show off her other mutation. Want to watch?"  
  
"Her other one?" Hank appeared at the foot of the staircase, blinking at her. "I wasn't aware she had another one."  
  
"Yeah, she makes the glass fishing floats I picked up. Come on up," she said, jerking her head.  
  
In the lab, Yuriko pulled out one of the large, dark blue floats, a little bigger than her clenched fist. "This is a memory," she said, showing it to Hank. "It's a lot harder to catch than echoes and other things." She tossed Laurel a smaller green bubble. "Shake it."  
  
Cautiously, Laurel raised the bubble to her ear and shook it. She jerked back; a pain-filled scream of agony wafted from the float, with a tinny, almost far-away sound to it. It was also familiar.  
  
"That's an echo," Yuriko said solemnly. "There were quite a lot of them." She took the blue float out of Hank's hand and smashed it firmly between her palms. Instead of the shattering of glass that they had been expecting, it gave a little, and then popped like a soap-bubble. "Quick, before it moves," she said, holding out her hand to Laurel.  
  
There was a suggestion of smoke in the palm of her hand, almost a very pale blue, and quickly lightening. Laurel reached out with her telepathy towards it, fully aware that she was trying to touch the mind of something completely insubstantial. But when she touched it, she was given a blast of memories. It was as if everything that the person had ever known was condensed in a small breath of smoke. She jerked back, eyes wild and panting. "I know who it belongs to," she said, staring up at Yuriko. The woman nodded, and made a little circular motion with her hands. The smoke seemed to concentrate a little more, and the bauble solidified again.   
  
"Then take it," Yuriko said. "And when you find him, give it to him. Tell him I'm sorry-it's the least I can do." She paused. "After all, he set me free."  
  
Hank glanced from the older-seeming Asian woman to the small redhead, who suddenly seemed very, very old indeed. "Logan," he said. "What you've got there are his memories."   
  
"And he will get them back," Laurel said firmly. "I'll make sure of that." 


End file.
